Kathryn Bigelow & James Cameron: Oscar's War of the Lenses

The Oscar nominations are out, and while some who had a pretty good shot saw their hopes dashed (Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine for Best Actor; Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria for Best Actress; (500 Days of Summer), Where the Wild Things Are, Invictus, Nine, Julie and Julia and my personal choice of A Single Man for Best Picture; Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds, Julianne Moore in A Single Man and Marion Cotillard in Nine for Best Supporting Actress; Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story for Best Documentary; A Single Man for Art Direction...it was criticized as too pretty, but apparently it still wasn't pretty enough!; "Cinema Italiano" from Nine and "All is Love" from Where the Wild Things Are for Best Original Song), most of the nominees were unsurprising. In fact, with one exception (Kruger losing her spot to Maggie Gyllenhaal), all of the major acting nominees matched the SAG nominees.

Loved how the collected press applauded for the crowd-pleasing Blind Side noms...it's like American Idol where the best frequently don't win, but the favorites do! (Maybe The Blind Side is this year's Ruben Studdard.) 

Kathryn Bigelow becomes only the fourth woman ever nominated for a Best Director Oscar (so deserved), and has an excellent chance to become the first to win. Also, Lee Daniels is only the second black man nominated for Best Director (also so deserved; the first was not Spike Lee, but John Singleton). Also re Daniels, I don't have stats on how many out gay people have been nominated for the award, but Rob Marshall comes to mind.

As for nominating 10 films instead of five, it feels like a marketing gimmick to me, especially when only five directors are nominated—it feels like the five films whose helmers were ignored are just honorary mentions with next to no chance of winning. And I didn't find the extra five to be particularly interesting choices, either—they feel like films that should have been in the running but shouldn't have been in the final cut, or, in the case of The Blind Side, they're concessions to commercial juggernauts. (I guess that is this year's Ghost, except Ghost was able to be nominated when there were only five slots, and The Blind Side probably wouldn't have had a shot.)

But the Oscars are the original marketing gimmick gone good, so more power to the movies that benefit from the looser standards.

 

The full list of nominees follows (and more movie talk is available here), but my guesses right now for the top awards would be: Avatar (but Inglourious Basterds has a real shot and The Hurt Locker is not out of the question), Bigelow, Bridges, Bullock (she's had the momentum, but Streep could still pull it off in the more conservative Oscars), Mo'Nique and Waltz.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Penélope Cruz, Nine
• Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
• Maggie Gyllenhall, Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
• Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Matt Damon, Invictus
• Woody Harrleson, The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST ACTRESS

• Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren, The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan, An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
• Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia

BEST ACTOR

• Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• Geroge Clooney, Up in the Air
• Colin Firth, A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman, Invictus
• Jeremey Renner, The Hurt Locker

 BEST DIRECTOR

• James Cameron, Avatar
• Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
• Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
• Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
• Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
• Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, The Messenger
• Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
• Pete Docter, Bob Petersom and Tom McCarthy, Up

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
• Nick Hornby, An Education
• Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In the Loop
• Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
• Jason Retiman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the AIr 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• Coraline
• The Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Secret of Kells
• Up

BEST PICTURE

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

ART DIRECTION

• Avatar, Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro, Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
• Nine, Art Direction: John Myhre, Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
• Sherlock Holmes, Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood, Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
• The Young Victoria, Art Direction: Patrice Vermette, Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

CINEMATOGRPAHY

• Avatar, Mauro Fiore
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bruno Delbonnel
• The Hurt Locker, Barry Ackroyd
• Inglourious Basterds, Robert Richardson
• The White Ribbon, Christian Berger

COSTUME DESIGN

• Bright Star, Janet Patterson
• Coco before Chanel, Catherine Leterrier
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Monique Prudhomme
• Nine, Colleen Atwood
• The Young Victoria, Sandy Powell

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Food, Inc.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
• Which Way Home

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
• The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
• The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
• Music by Prudence
• Rabbit à la Berlin

BEST FILM EDITING

• Avatar, Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
• District 9, Julian Clarke
• The Hurt Locker, Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
• Inglourious Basterds, Sally Menke
• Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Joe Klotz

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

• Ajami, Israel
• El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentina
• The Milk of Sorrow, Peru
• Un Prophète, France
• The White Ribbon, Germany

BEST MAKEUP

• Il Divo, Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
• Star Trek, Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
• The Young Victoria, Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• Avatar, James Horner
• Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alexandre Desplat
• The Hurt Locker, Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
• Sherlock Holmes, Hans Zimmer
• Up, Michael Giacchino

BEST ORIGINAL SONG 

• Almost There from The Princess and the Frog
• Down in New Orleans from The Princess and the Frog
• Loin de Paname from Paris 36
• Take It All from Nine
• The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

• French Roast
• Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
• The Lady and the Reaper
• Logorama
• A Matter of Loaf and Death

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT

• The Door
• Instead of Abracadabra
• Kavi
• Miracle Fish
• The New Tenants

BEST SOUND EDITING

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Up

BEST SOUND MIXING

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Avatar
• District 9
• Star Trek