Oscar Winner List

(0 for 1) Best Picture: in an upset, Inglorious Basterds THE HURT LOCKER

(0 for 2) Director: James Cameron KATHRYN BIGELOW for THE HURT LOCKER

(1 for 3) Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges

(1 for 4) Lead Actress: Meryl Streep SANDRA BULLOCK

(2 for 5) Supporting Actor: Chirstoph Waltz

(3 for 6) Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique

(3 for 7) Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino THE HURT LOCKER

(3 for 8) Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman PRECIOUS

(4 for 9) Animated Feature: Up …duh

(5 for 10) Art Direction: Avatar

(5 for 11) Cinematography: Inglorious Basterds AVATAR

(6 for 12) Costume Design: The Young Victoria

(7 for 13) Documentary Feature: The Cove

(8 for 14) Film Editing: The Hurt Locker

(8 for 15) Foreign Language Film: The Prophet THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES

(9 for 16) Make Up: Star Trek

(9 for 17) Music (original score): The Hurt Locker UP

(10 for 18) Music (original song): Weary Kind (Crazy Heart)

(11 for 19) Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker

(12 for 20) Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker

(13 for 21) Visual Effects: Avatar

For a total percentage of 62%

Now, a good second guess would be to put anything related to The Hurt Locker in as a winner. (If i listened to myself here, my percentage would have been 76%). A huge sweep for The Hurt Locker is possible if voters find it more appealing than the big bad blockbuster that is Avatar. So watch out for it to sneak up and walk away with Best Picture (yep), Director (yep), Actor, and Original Screenplay (yep).

Crazy Heart

Feb 2010, Scott Cooper, 112 mins

I’m a sucker for the kind of story Crazy Heart puts on the screen. Maybe it’s from my days working with a group of burnt out, chain smoking, fifty-something-year-old drunk landscapers. Whatever is, I feel drawn to this sad world of self deprecation. The story behind why people allow themselves to fall so far past the realm "normal" is extremely interesting to me. Perhaps it’s why I like shows like Intervention; to see a pathetic life, a wasted life, a train wreck of existence... I can’t turn away. Though it may be because it’s not my life.

That being said, Jeff Bridges arguably gives his best performance ever. Every inch of his Bad Blake character seems real. I’ve seen a man with nothing but a bottle, his pain suppressed only until the buzz is gone. And his performance is the real thing.

I don’t like country music, not because of the story the songs tell, but just because it’s slow and the fact I never really heard it as a kid. However, I like the music that is Crazy Heart. It works.

The filmmakers and song writers did a great job making Bad Blake seem like a country performer. A fatal flaw was avoided when they made the music good enough that even a kid from the Northeast, who’d rather listen to The Doors than Hank Williams, actually enjoyed the country twang.

Bad is so bad to himself that even after a car wreck leaves him with a broken ankle and a concussion, the doctor tells him; “I’m not worried about the ankle, I’m worried about your general condition.” Put yourself in Bad’s shoes, you’re 57 years old, four broken marriages, a kid somewhere who won’t talk to you, a dying career... why wouldn’t bury yourself in a bottle of whisky and chain smoke cigs from your soft pack? Because killing yourself with regret is still killing yourself. A slow suicide is still suicide. It’s a dark way to live but this kind of role brings out the best in many actors.

Crazy Heart to me was more of a character study than anything. I would love to be able to create a character as Thomas Cobb (the novel) did.

Bridges will most likely win the Oscar. He’s due. His performance, much like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler last year, steals the show from any other aspect of the film. Maggie Gyllenhaal is up for Best Supporting Actress, she won’t win. I feel the nomination is more of a tribute to how good Bridges was. He made every character in the film believable because you knew he was. Even Colin Farrell as a country singer stud, Tommy Sweet.

Hats off and cup up Mr. Bridges. Wonderful film.

The Oscar Race

Today we will handle best Pic Nominations;

The underdog: Juno

A clever and hilarious look at one of the most popular after-school-special plots of all time... teenage pregnancy. Ellen Page delivers a solid performance in the title role. The writing is so witty and fun that it overshadows Page's strong performance. Not a likely Best Picture winner but with its 100+ Million box office take, its by far the most popular of the 5 nominees.

Jennifer Garner, Michael Cera, and JK Simmons are among a few of the stand out supporting roles in what has been tagged as this years Little Miss Sunshine. But like Sunshine a year ago, Juno will have to settle for the joy of the nomination.

Over-rated: Michael Clayton

Over-rated is a tough way to start this synopsis but Clayton honestly does not deserve to be in the group with these other fine movies (not that I've seen Atonement... yet). Clooney plays Clooney as a lawyer and he does it well. Tom Wilkinson gives his best performance since the terribly underrated In the Bedroom. Tilda Swinton... well, I just dont like her in anything. The plot twists are fun and they do catch you off guard but for a Best Picture to rely on an unforseeable twist is not a good thing. If a twist was all you needed to win a nomination, we'd see Fight Club and Wild Things holding statues as well.

A Close Second: There Will Be Blood

Thank god for Daniel Day-Lewis! Being a very unreligious man myself, I still feel like I must praise the holly lord for this fine actor. Lewis' performance is the best of the year, one of the top 5 or so I have ever seen (his performance in Gang's of New York is also on that list). Lewis takes his character, Daniel Plainview, a gritty oil driller, and pours every bit of energy he has into the role. The acting is so amazing that I found myself thinking this must be what Lewis is like in real life. Though a 3 1/2 star movie itself, the 2 1/2 hours have no steam when Plainview is off the screen. There is great cinematography but the overall amazement is kept solidly on the lead and the subtracts at the end from the final film just enough that its is this years runner up.

BEST PICTURE WINNER: No Country for Old Men

The Coen Brothers are genius. The film is genius. The acting is perfect from Josh Brolin to Tommy Lee Jones to Javier Bardem to Woody Harrelson. There is not a moment in the film that is not exciting. The editing, the sound, the landscapes, set designs, character development, gun battles, the horror, and the characters' chemistry are all perfect. The open ending is the one thing that stops the movie from being a full 4 star epic. But in a season where it has dominated the Best Picture Awards, it will continue to roll right to the Oscar podium. By the way, Javier Bardem gives the second best performance of the year here. Fortunatley for both Lewis and Bardem, they are in two seperate categories, lead and supporting respectively.