OFFICIAL OSCAR WATCH 2009

Ok, so Oscar-wise it has been a pretty bad year (IMO) thus far except for the Animated Feature catagory. Let's post our Oscar Predictions/watch lists and we can change them over time.

Best Picture
Up
(500) Days of Summer
Shutter Island
Invictus
Nine
Precious: Based on a Novel By Sapphire
The Road
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
An Education
Tree of Life

Best Actor
Joseph Gordon-Levitt ((500) Days of Summer)
Freeman/Damon - whichever is considered "Lead" (Invictus)
Daniel Day Lewis (Nine)
Jake Gyllenhall (Brothers)
Heath Ledger (Dr. Parnassus)
------------------------------
Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island)
Brad Pitt (Tree of Life)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
Sam Rockwell (Moon)

Best Actress
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
Marion Cotillard/Penelope Cruz (Maybe both) (Nine)
Hillary Swank (Amelia)
Saorise Ronan (The Lovely Bones)
Audrey Tautou (Coco Before Chanel)
--------------------------------------------

Best Supporting Actor
Damon/Freeman (Invictus)
Tobey McGuire (Brothers)
Sean Penn (Tree of Life)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
?????

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique (Precious)
?????

Best Director
Clint Eastwood (Invictus)
Nine (Rob Marshall)
Avatar (James Cameron)
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Peter Jackson (The Lovely Bones)

I'll add my other catagories later...

My early predictions:

Best Picture
The Blind Side
Creation
Everybody's Fine
Green Zone (I also expect it to move up to Christmas)
The Hurt Locker
Invictus
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Nine
A Serious Man
Up

Best Actor
Paul Bettany (Creation)
Matt Damon (Green Zone)
Daniel Day-Lewis (Nine)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

Best Actress
Amy Adams (Sunshine Cleaning)
Jennifer Connelly (Creation)
Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)
Hilary Swank (Amelia)
Audrey Tautou (Coco Before Chanel)

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Clint Eastwood (Invictus)
Paul Greengrass (Green Zone)
Rob Marshall (Nine)
Pete Docter (Up)

Best Animated Feature
Coraline
Ponyo
Up
--------------------
A Christmas Carol
Mary and Max (I expect this to get a one-week Oscar run in December)

ugh, this is everything that's wrong with the oscar awards. The fact that you can pretty much guess which movies will be considered by the academy and which ones wont. I think every single movie should be considered equally, even something crappy like bandslam.

On the other hand, it is fun watching Meryl Streep accepting awards every other day. I bet she could line her house with the awards she has, i wonder if they are strong enough to shield bombs and zombies....

Completely agree with you UDM

Meryl Streep only has 2 Oscars though.

I may elaborate a little bit later, but I think the movies that'll get tons of nods are Precious, Avatar, The Lovely Bones, The Road, Nine, The Hurt Locker, and Amelia.

undeadmonkey wrote:ugh, this is everything that's wrong with the oscar awards. The fact that you can pretty much guess which movies will be considered by the academy and which ones wont. I think every single movie should be considered equally, even something crappy like bandslam.

On the other hand, it is fun watching Meryl Streep accepting awards every other day. I bet she could line her house with the awards she has, i wonder if they are strong enough to shield bombs and zombies....

A) As far as I can tell Bandslam wasn't crappy considering how its rated.
B) Streep won 2 Oscars. One for Sophie's Choice, which I have seen but I have heard is extremely powerful and one for Kramer vs. Kramer which I also hear is great.
C) We should consider a film that you say is crappy for the best film of the year? If a critic goes to a film, loves it or a performance then it gets nominated... Shouldn't that be what happens? In effect since every film is seen by critics every year, every film actually does have a chance. They just believe that a portrayl of a gay rights activist that was spot on was better that a gruffy guy in a Batsuit. I agree with them. I think they did pretty well last year, actually.

Saying "people have seen this film and say that person gives a great performance," isn't a bad thing in my opinion. Last year people were saying "Look at that performance by Richard Jenkins, it was great," and no one said "Will Ferrel DESERVES the Oscar for his role in Step Brothers!" You can like a film and still not believe that its the best film out there for a given year and you can believe a film is boring as Hell and still think it is extremely well made. Sure some films get looked over, such as The Dark Knight last year, but everything that got nominated for Best Picture was pretty well made in many people's opinion. Everything nominated is great to a whole lot of people, just because its not your taste doesn't really matter. The Oscars are supposed to be about very well made films and it is about opinions. I, for one, enjoyed it last year which was the first year I watched it and I think its fun to make predictions on what's going to happen. The same thing goes for the games that we play on here if that is okay with the Party Pooper Patrol.

Its a flawed system anyway for two reasons:

One, its all based on opinion

And two, its impossible to compare movies from different styles and genres to each other, which they try to do. Its kinda like trying to say who is the better sports star, Albert Pujols, Kobe Bryant or Alex Ovechkin. They are all doing different things, and no one should even try to compare the Dark Knight to Milk because they are going for entirely different things, and audiences for that matter. The reason the same style of films get nominated every year is because they are aimed at the audience that votes on these things, so they consider them the best pictures, in their opinion, which is for some reason, better than the every man.

I can't see Avatar or The Road getting serious consideration. Avatar will end up getting nearly all of its nominations in the technical categories and The Road will probably end up like The Mist from 2007 in which the film is expected to be an Oscar contender but gets ignored because of its genre.

The Lovely Bones has an outside shot at the moment. It depends on how good it really is.

Precious could see a couple of nominations, but I highly doubt it. Sundance winners tend not to do well with the Academy. The same goes with urban films.

Lol, sorry W, I was trying to poop the party. That what i wrote was just my opinion of the oscars, i wasnt trying to detract from the fun.

geezer9687 wrote:Its a flawed system anyway for two reasons:

One, its all based on opinion

And two, its impossible to compare movies from different styles and genres to each other, which they try to do. Its kinda like trying to say who is the better sports star, Albert Pujols, Kobe Bryant or Alex Ovechkin. They are all doing different things, and no one should even try to compare the Dark Knight to Milk because they are going for entirely different things, and audiences for that matter. The reason the same style of films get nominated every year is because they are aimed at the audience that votes on these things, so they consider them the best pictures, in their opinion, which is for some reason, better than the every man.

I do believe they are called the ACADEMY AWARDS, so obviously they are going to be what the ACADEMY thinks. The logic saying that its flawed because its based on opinion when they're the ACADEMY AWARDS voted on by the ACADEMY is flawed itself. People don't complain about the Director's Guild Awards because they understand that the DIRECTORS are voting for it. Why can't people understand that this is what the ACADEMY thinks? If you would like the EVERYMAN AWARDS, create it, I'd love to see it. You'll get films like Twilight nominated, but still, I'd love to see it. In fact, I may make the Everyman Awards myself...

We have the Everyman Awards. They are called the People's Choice Awards.

Buscemi wrote:I can't see Avatar or The Road getting serious consideration. Avatar will end up getting nearly all of its nominations in the technical categories and The Road will probably end up like The Mist from 2007 in which the film is expected to be an Oscar contender but gets ignored because of its genre.

The Lovely Bones has an outside shot at the moment. It depends on how good it really is.

Precious could see a couple of nominations, but I highly doubt it. Sundance winners tend not to do well with the Academy. The same goes with urban films.

I don't remember anyone thinking The Mist was an Oscar-contender. And I don't think The Road is a straight horror movie, if any movie gets looked over this year for being horror, it'll be Shutter Island.

Yeah, it depends on how good The Lovely Bones is on whether it'll get nods. But doesn't that go for every movie?

I think Precious will do well, mostly because it'll be a great movie (from reviews from Sundance). But also partly because the Academy has zero experience with Black movies set in the inner-city and they're going to want something different. It has a greatly increased chance with the Best Picture catergory being expanded to 10 slots.

The Mist was written and directed by Frank Darabont and based on Stephen King's novel. The last two Darabont/King teamings (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) were Best Picture nominees. I'm pretty sure at one point it was tabbed as a possible contender and it even opened during Oscar season to try to score some nominations. But the disappointing box office coupled with the film's genre hurt it.

The Road is from the same distributor as The Mist only this time, it isn't opening in a prime spot and it has suffered backlash from last year's test screenings. Also, the distributor is in financial trouble and may choose only to focus on the Oscar chances for Nine. Even if reviews are fantastic and it does well at the box office, it still may be seen a just a horror film or just a disaster film by the Academy.

Buscemi wrote:The Mist was written and directed by Frank Darabont and based on Stephen King's novel. The last two Darabont/King teamings (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) were Best Picture nominees. I'm pretty sure at one point it was tabbed as a possible contender and it even opened during Oscar season to try to score some nominations. But the disappointing box office coupled with the film's genre hurt it.

The Road is from the same distributor as The Mist only this time, it isn't opening in a prime spot and it has suffered backlash from last year's test screenings. Also, the distributor is in financial trouble and may choose only to focus on the Oscar chances for Nine. Even if reviews are fantastic and it does well at the box office, it still may be seen a just a horror film or just a disaster film by the Academy.

I liked The Mist and all--I gave it an 8--but The Mist wasn't good enough to be an Oscar contender. Therefore, it wasn't an Oscar contender. The Road isn't completely horror like The Mist was. The Mist was about running from alienish creatures (though they weren't aliens). The Road is about the bond between a father and son and what lengths that father will go through to protect his son. Which one sounds like an Oscar contender?

Comparing The Mist to the other two Darabont/King collabs is slightly faulty logic. The Mist was a short story from Skeleton Crew. It wasn't even one of his better stories. The film version, while done by Darabont, was also missing any great actors and never had the appeal that the other stories had. Green Mile and Shawshank had great actors involved in Hanks, Freeman, Robbins, etc. Mist had Tom Jane.

I don't think anybody (else) expected Mist to be an oscar contender. It was more along the lines of 1408 or Cujo. I certainly never even entertained the idea that Mist would be anything be a Horror movie. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile were both a departure from straight horror for King (which he may be better at IMO) and hence had that extra something that helped capture the Academy voters.

As for the Road, if it is made even a third as well as the book it will be phenomenal. Among book geeks, Cormac is one of the BEST EVER and this book is a masterpiece. It all depends on the writer and director of the movie because the source material is genius.

Oscar possibilites that I can see happening:

Inglourious Basterds
-Best Supporting Actor (Christoph Waltz)
-Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson)
-Best Sound

Ponyo
-Best Animated Feature (Hayao Miyazaki)
-Best Original Score (Joe Hishashi)

The Hurt Locker
-Best Picture
-Best Actor (Jeremy Renner)
-Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow)
-Best Film Editing (Bob Murawski/Chris Innes)
-Best Cinematography (Barry Ackroyd)