Will tonight's Academy Awards feature moments as memorable as Sally Fields' "You really like me!" speech in 1985?
The Academy Awards, as I assume you already know by now, will (at last) be telecast live to the world tonight. Anne Hathaway and James Franco will be the host of this week's occasion, so there's going to be a very good chance that the entire opening segment will consist of some sort a musical number. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there will be at least another musical act after recent revelationsyears have shown Anne Hathaway and James Franco to be, well, not funny. But enough about them, let's get into the real reason that we talk about the Oscars, which are the award nominees and possible winners. Because I felt that my Oscar picks from last year went pretty well overall, here now ,for the second consecutive year, are my predictions for all of the major awards going into tonight's telecast, and reasons as to why I chose them. Now, I must warn you, the majority of these picks are not based on the fact that I watched the movies or the actors performed and enjoyed them, as I only watched six new movies total that came out in 2010 ("Toy Story 3," "Inception," "The Social Network," "The King's Speech," "The Town" and, don't judge me, "Megamind). So expect to see a lot of these picks to be based on either what happened in previous awards shows from the last three or four months, recent Oscar history, and things that I read online. But, hey, if I went 8 out of 10 last year, I'm sure that this strategy should work again this year.
Here we go...
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Will Win: "Inside Job"
The documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" may be heading to this awards show with the most money grossed and the buzz thanks to the speculation as to whether or not anonymous street artist and the film's director, Banksy, will be appearing at the awards show (and if he does, then will he reveal his true identity or wear some sort of monkey mask?), but I still think that it will be this movie that will take home the prize. It's one of the best reviewed movies of the year (98% according to Rotten Tomatoes) and I have a feeling that the Academy will prefer a well made movie about the 2008 financial crisis over the possibility of a man wearing a monkey suit on stage.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Will Win: "Toy Story 3"
Not only was this the best animated movie of the year, but it is arguably the best film of 2010, period. It also has the Pixar factor going for them (the film studio has won this category every year since 2007) and it's the only movie out of the other nominees to get nominated for Best Picture. Seeing this movie not win the award would be not only the biggest upset of the night but one of the biggest Oscar upsets ever.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will Win: Christopher Nolan, "Inception"
The man created one of the most jaw dropping, entertaining and innovative movies of the year from his own imagination. Surely, the Academy won't screw him out of this award like they screwed him from a Best Director nomination, will they? Ah, who am I kidding! Of course they can, and they probably will, by giving it to David Seidler, too! Bastards.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will Win: Aaron Sorkin, "The Social Network"
This one was a no-brainer. Along with the wonderful cast, Sorkin's writing was the major highlight of the film. Besides, he won the Golden Globe and the WGA Award for this category, two usually reliable sources in predicting who is going to win this category.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will Win: Christian Bale, "The Fighter"
Hmm, let's see: Screen Actors Guild Award? Check. Golden Globe? Check. Satellite Award? Check. At least twenty other critics association awards? Check. Although I do believe that Geoffrey Rush is a major dark horse in this category (and, really, the only challenger for this award), I'm still fairly confident that it will be Bale to take home this prize. I can't say the same thing about how I think his acceptance speech will go, though.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will Win: Melissa Leo, "The Fighter"
This category seems to be the most open out of the rest of the ones that I've mentioned or will mention later. On one hand, you have Melissa Leo, who won the Golden Globe for this category. But on the other hand, you have "The Fighter" co-star Amy Adams who many say were as good, if not better than Leo. And then there's Hailee Steinfeld, who was not only the leading actress in "True Grit" (instead of just supporting) but is also placed in a category that tends to reward up-and-comers. So while Steinfeld is an especially tempting choice, I'm going to stick with the woman that has been the favorite this whole time, which is Leo. However, I won't be very surprised if she ends up with the shorthand. By the way, all this talk about Leo has made me even happy about the fact that the second season of "Treme," of which she has a prominent role in, premieres in less than two months. That was a well-acted show in its first season, and I hope that the cast doesn't disappoint in season two.
BEST ACTRESS
Will Win: Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"
Whereas the Best Supporting Actress category remains wide open, the Best Actress category has been pretty locked up for weeks.Not only has she been the Christian Bale of this category in terms of victories during other major and minor award shows, but according to prolific film critic Roger Ebert, she tended to have more scenes in which she was able to act out in emotional ways, whether it was feeling scared, insecure or batsh*t insane like during the end, which the Academy tends to really like. Really well deserved, too, as her acting in that movie was brilliant.
BEST ACTOR
Will Win: Colin Firth, "The King's Speech"
Last year, Firth (who was nominated for his performance in "A Single Man") took a backseat during the ceremonies as Jeff Bridges ended up being one to take this award for his performance in "Crazy Heart." This year, it's going to be another way around with Firth taking the award for Bridges and other worthy nominees that include James Franco for "127 Hours" and Jessee Eisenberg for "The Social Network." According to Wikipedia, he has won roughly 80% of all his previous nominations during awards season, and, let's face it, Hollywood tends to love people with British accent who tend to portray British royalty very well. After all, just ask Helen Mirren, or even Charles Laughton's corpse. I'm sure that they will agree with me.
BEST DIRECTOR
Will Win: David Fincher, "The Social Network"
This category is particularly interesting among the rest because for weeks, months in fact, it appeared that it will be Fincher who would take home the prize. But then the Director's Guild of America, who has correctly picked the last nine winners of this award, selected Tom Hooper for his award in "The King's Speech," and that pretty much changed everything in terms of the predictability of this award. Personally, I'm deciding to stick with Fincher and choose him as my pick in this category. As Aaron Sorkin pointed out in his Golden Globe acceptance speech, the man managed to turn a movie about a few guys sitting in front of their computer and working to build a successful social networking site into a smart, captivating two hour motion. Also, on a personal note, I tend to have more admiration for the man than Hooper as has directed some of my favorite movies of the past fifteen years, including "Fight Club" and "Zodiac." Although, I do think that Hooper will get more chances thanks to his pedigree and his tendency to direct great historical drama whether it's in film ("The King's Speech") or on TV ("John Adams," "Elizabeth I")
BEST PICTURE
Will Win: "The King's Speech"
Every year, no matter if there are 5 or 10 nominees as it has been during the past two years, the Best Picture race seemingly boils down to two possible movies. There are of course some rare exceptions, like in '94 when "Forrest Gump" was battling "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Pulp Fiction" for the title, or in '67 when "In the Heat of the Night" was up against "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde," but those events rarely happen these days. This year the trend continues, as the two serious contenders for Best Picture are "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech." In a perfect world, "Inception" and "Toy Story 3" would also end up being one of those major contenders, but unfortunately we are not living in one. And despite the fact that I believe "The Social Network" will take home the prize of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, I still have a strong feeling that it will be Tom Hooper's well acted and well written British historical drama that will take home the night's biggest prize once the ceremony is over.
The reasons? Well, most people would point towards the fact that the movie is British and that the Academy over the years loved to award British people for their movie achievements. But that argument is too simple and too flawed as there have been plenty examples of the past few years where British film have lost out on major awards (examples: "Atonement" losing Best Picture in 2007, "Happy Go Lucky" losing Best Foreign Film last year). I'm going with the much more logical reasoning. For starters, no matter how much accolades that "The Social Network" has received over the past few months, Oscar experts from as early as November would continue to call "The King's Speech" the favorite to win Best Picture for their superior cast and wonderful direction by Tom Hooper. Second, I feel that the Academy tends to award this category to films that have the better acting, which you can argue that "The King's Speech" has (after all, two of the show's major stars have a chance at grabbing awards later tonight while there are none from "The Social Network" that you can see winning in a practical standpoint). Finally, even though "The King's Speech" failed to beat "The Social Network" in the Golden Globe for Best Drama, it did win over them in the Director's Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Producer's Guild Awards, three earlier award show that are excellent telltale signs at how the Academy Awards is going to shape up. So get ready, America, because in a few hours a movie about the British king shall be crowned on your soil!
Now that that's out of the way, here a new installment of "End of the Week" for this, the final full week of February 2011:
END OF THE WEEK
Stories of the Week:
-The Actual Story of the Week: The Latest in the Libyan Uprising
What has started out as simple protests for a change in the country's rule has turned into a full out war and an uprising. Currently, the majority of the country is now reported to be under the rule of the new Libyan opposition, which is currently centered around the major city of Benghazi. Despite the opposition continuing to gain strength and international support by the day, the old regime led by Muammar Gadhaffi, centered and still operating in the capital city of Tripoli, continues to not back down, continuing to send soldiers and police out to the streets to raid and even kill any opposition of his rule. It has become so bloody that there there been reports of at least 10,000 people have been reported injured and/or killed. But things have been improving in the country's quest to end the reign of Gadhaffi. Several Libyan officials have stepped down, the major countries in the world seem to be in favor of the opposition and are even considering putting a flight alert in the nation so Gadhaffi's forces can't attack through the air, and it appears that the world's longest running autocracy should come to an end very soon. Until then, all we as a nation and as a planet can do is watch and see what violence, protests, tensions and diplomatic events will happen next.
-The Tiger Woods Saga of '09 Memorial Story of the Week: CBS Cancels Production of "Two and a Half Men" After Charlie Sheen's Rants Against Show's Creator
Boy, you just have to love that Charlie Sheen and his complete self-destruction! Just when you think that he's going to lay off the crazy and get back into the "Two and a Half Men" production set to complete the rest of the episodes that the show has left to finish in their already shortened season, he goes on a radio show and on TMZ to blast the show's creator Chuck Lorre, calling him names like "hymie" and "Haim Levine" and even criticizing Alcoholics Anonymous (calling him a bootleg cult) and proclaiming just how awesome he is. Now, CBS has finally done what they should have done a while back, canceling the rest of the season of "Two and a Half Men," but possibly also the show entirely! Mel Gibson, I think that you might have yourself a new best friend.
Video of the Week: "Two and a Half Men" Leaked Finale
During the finale, Sheen's character also stated that he's going to ask kids to recycle...TO THE EXTREME!
Person of the Week: Muammar Gaddafi (a.k.a. Mommar el-Gadhafi a.k.a. Muammar Quaddafi, a.k.a. Mummar al-Gaddafi a.k.a. Mo, and every other way people have been misspelling his name over the past two weeks)
Not only is he being obstinate in fighting to remain in charge of Libya, but he's also been in favor of going as far as to arm his supporters and convince them to kill any protester fighting for the end of his regime in the process, all while looking fabulous in the process. That's a skill that requires great stubbornness, determination, and an evil mind, and he manages to have all three! Now, just do the right thing and end this violence before things end up getting even worse.
Furthermore, the man's self disillusion at the current situation is fascinating. Here is his country, with millions fighting for democracy and freedom from his oppressive rule, thousands getting killed for the cause and cursing his name; a situation so chaotic that the nation is on the brink of a full-on Civil War if it continues. So what does he do? He acts like nothing is happening, claiming that the Libyan people are behind him and acting like it was just a normal week, with the protesters as simple distraction from his awesomeness. At least Hosni Mubarak understood what his people want and eventually stepped down. With him, it appears that the uprisers just might have to go all Russian Revolution on him and behead not only him, but his entire family as well in order to prevent future Gaddafi from taking over again. No wonder that he and Charlie Sheen have been in the news this week. Both are basically the same people (psycho, possibly drug fueled) , except for their occupations.
-Runner-ups:
1. Libyan citizens taking footage of the uprising, no matter how dangerous it might have been.
2. Charlie Sheen. From possibly canceling "Two and a Half Me" for good (yay!) to making anti-Semetic rants during a radio interview to even peeing in front of a journalist to prove his sobriety, you couldn't help but get glued to the latest developments in his life. God bless him, and his coked-up little heart.
And that's the way it was! Sorry if you felt that this week's installment spent all of the time to Sheen and the happenings in Libya and not to other big happenings like the latest happenings in Wisconsin from the passing of the hated union bill in the state's assembly to the 70,000 gathered in Madison yesterday, or this music video from LCD Soundsystem featuring the Muppets. Hopefully, I shall redeem myself next week. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend, Oscar or not.
Sincerely,
Your pal: mj15
If you have any opinions on today's post, or if you just have any suggestions or
tips for my next blog entry, e-mail me at: mj1599@aol.com. Your e-mails are greatly appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment