Oscars 2010

First, a few things: 1) I’m stoked about the host(s) this year. I think Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin will kill together. I’m really not the biggest Baldwin fan in the world (30 Rock is overrated, blah, blah, blah), but if you pair him with the right person, well, damn. I guess I should see It’s Complicated? Nah; 2) I know it’s uncool for a cinephile to get all giggly about awards shows, especially the Oscars. But fuck that noise. I love the Oscars. I know what they are. I’m no fool. To me, it’s fun because it gets people talking about movies who wouldn’t normally talk about movies. And I get to see Penelope Cruz in a dress (kidding) and George Clooney with a new fuck buddy every year (not kidding). Good enough for me. 

The nominees for this year’s show were announced this morning and, for a number of reasons, we’re stoked as hell. The nominees are listed below; we're guessing that if you're a regular of this site at all, you'll be able to figure out the stokers yourself. Same as we did with the Golden Globe Awards, the nominees we think will win are in red and the titles we hope will win are in blue. If we both hope and think, then the titles are in green.

The show is set to take place on Sunday, March 7 at 5 pm ET. Thirty-three days to go … can’t hardly wait.

BEST PICTURE

Avatar

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Precious

A Serious Man

Up

Up in the Air

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE - MALE

Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart

George Clooney - Up in the Air

Colin Firth - A Single Man

Morgan Freeman - Invictus

Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE - FEMALE

Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side

Helen Mirren - The Last Station

Care Mulligan - An Education

Gabourey Sidibe - Precious

Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - MALE

Matt Damon - Invictus

Woody Harrelson - The Messenger

Christopher Plummer - The Last Station

Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - FEMALE

Penelope Cruz - Nine

Vera Farmiga - Up in the Air

Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart

Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air

Mo’Nique - Precious

(Why/how the fuck did Melanie Laurent not get nominated for Inglourious Basterds?! You're really telling me that the awful Vera Farmiga was better in Up in the Air? Fuck you, world! Laurent gave the performance of the year.)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Coraline

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Princess and the Frog

The Secret of Kells

Up

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Mauro Fiore - Avatar

Bruno Delbonel - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Barry Ackroyd - The Hurt Locker

Robert Richardson - Inglourious Basterds

Christian Berger - The White Ribbon

BEST DIRECTOR

James Cameron - Avatar

Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds

Lee Daniels - Precious

Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

BEST FILM EDITING

Avatar

District 9

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

Precious

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Ajami

El Secreto de Sus Ojos

The Milk of Sorrow

Un Prophete

The White Ribbon

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

James Horner - Avatar

Alexandre Desplat - Fantastic Mr. Fox

Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders - The Hurt Locker

Hans Zimmer - Sherlock Holmes

Michael Giacchio - Up

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Avatar

District 9

Star Trek

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

District 9

An Education

In the Loop

Precious

Up in the Air

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

The Messenger

A Serious Man

Up

(No Avatar?! KICK. FUCKING. ASS.)

While the news that our most hated film of the year, Avatar, scored nine nominations does get us down … well … we kind of expected it. Ugh. The fact that some of our favorites of the year scored lots of nominations is great! The Hurt Locker scored nine nominations and Inglourious Basterds scored eight!

A few other things to note (snubs, mostly): Meryl Streep scored her 16th Oscar nomination, a record; Where the Wild Things Are, a great, great film, was snubbed; the sun didn’t shine on Clint Eastwood this year; the directors of the two films with the most nominations, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and James Cameron (Avatar), were married for a couple of years in the early 90s; The Hangover wasn’t nominated for anything (thank God), though it was originally rumored to be; (500) Days of Summer got the snub … grr!!!; Samantha Morton once again got the snub; Public Enemies, though not a normal Oscar-type film, didn’t get any attention.

Oh, and last but not least, we attempted to predict the nominees this year, even going on to say that we were certain that we’d get at least 80 percent of what we predicted correct. Well, we got 73 percent right, guessing 44 our of 60 nominations. Not bad, but not great either. More fun with surprises, I suppose.  We are a little cranky, though, due to the across-the-board snub of The Road. (Not even a cinematography nomination?! WTF?!!!?) But the biggest snub of the year, in our opinion, goes to Sam Rockwell, who was GREAT in Moon. But, hey, Rockwell gets ignored pretty much every year.

Written by G. William Locke