The Blind Side

Rather than lard up the front page with redundant posts, I’m going to add my thoughts about today’s announcement – available here – to my now completely useless predictions post. New thoughts are in red.

I went 82/105 with my predictions (39/45 in the Big Eight), plus another 11 (4) where my first alternate got nominated. This is by a huge margin my best year ever, and proof, I think, of how intensely flat awards season has been this year.

Previously: After having sat out last year in a snit about the general anemia of the whole damn thing, I am back to join the fun of guessing what Tuesday’s Oscar nominations shall bring. Commentary as seems necessary; and if you are for whatever reason looking for advice in winning some kind of pool, I’d advise you to look elsewhere. Last time I did this, I only got 68/99 – a decent batting average, but nothing to be too proud of. I only wish I’d gotten off my damn high horse last year, so I could have been one of the fairly small clutch of people predicting that ugly Blind Side nom for Best Picture; it would have raised my street cred something fierce. On the right kind of street.

Key:
Nomination I got right I was wrong What actually got nominated

Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Nothing terribly exciting as far as the big category goes, though my gut was completely wrong.

Previously: In the great dilemma of 3 Films, 2 Slots, I think that Winter’s Bone is just too small, and lacks the seasonal meta-narrative of last year’s equally-small The Hurt Locker. I’m also not sure that 127 Hours started to lose its heat fast enough to miss. Plus, I feel like The Town is all sewn up, but maybe I’m just an idiot.

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

WOW. Nolan would definitely not have been my pick to go – I thought it was Coens v. Russell. The academy just really does not like him at all, do they?

Previously: If A Serious Man could get a Best Picture nomination last year, it doesn’t do to write off the Coens’ support in the Academy. Still, the smart money is probably with the conventional wisdom (I’d pick Russell as the most vulnerable; I might not understand all the support for The King’s Speech, but it’s obviously real).

Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Not shocking, not really. I don’t have an opinion on this until I see Biutiful next week.

Previously: Honor dictates I pick only one alternate, but Ryan Gosling was tempting, and not just because he’d be my favorite of the nominees. I still have a hard time seeing him or Wahlberg get traction (one is too depressing, one is too quiet).

Best Actress
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Huzzah, my first perfect category of the morning. So goddamn happy to see Williams there, she absolute deserves it.

Previously: After Bening/Portman/Lawrence, this category gets rather confusing very quickly. I don’t know if I buy the Hailee Steinfeld bumped to Lead theory, but it certainly wouldn’t shock me.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Calling it: The Social Network is losing support, it’s going to miss everything. Seriously, though, it’s too bad, Garfield was good in the role, though Hawkes was better.

Previously: It seems awfully CW, but none of them seem even remotely weak.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helen Bonham-Carter, The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Leslie Manville, Another Year
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Dammit, that’s what I had for, like, two days, and I changed it at the last second. But I’m terrifically glad for Weaver, she’s easily the best person in this category.

Previously: I almost thought about buying the idea that Steinfeld’s category confusion will lead to a shutout, but I chickened out at the last second. I do, though, think that the Black Swan women will cancel one another. As always, this is the hardest acting race to predict. I’d only be shocked if Leo and Adams both miss.

Best Original Screenplay
Another Year, by Mike Leigh
Black Swan, by Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin
The Fighter, by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception, by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right, by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumber
The King’s Speech, by David Seidler

They do love their Mike Leigh. As should we all.

Previously: Oscar Predicting 101: don’t leave the BP race for the screenplays if you don’t have to.

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours, by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network, by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3, by Michael Arndt
True Grit, by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone, by Debra Grainik & Anne Rosellini

The annoying thing is that I basically told myself in public to swap out Winter’s Bone in BP. Whatever, I got another perfect round.

Previously: By my just-announced logic, I should switch my predictions here or in BP, but I think Winter’s Bone is much too safe here.

Best Cinematography
127 Hours (Anthony Dod Mantle & Enrique Chediak)
Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
Inception (Wally Pfister)

The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)
True Grit (Roger Deakins)

Really, The King’s Speech? Aw fucking come on. Most disappointing semi-surprise of the morning for me.

Previously: I do not have the stomach to imagine the ASC nod for The King’s Speech being replicated. Some nice framing, but that’s not much to base a nomination on. And of course you’re not supposed to let that kind of thing cloud your judgment in predicting, but we’re all only human.

Best Editing
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
Inception (Lee Smith)
The King’s Speech (Tariq Anwar)
The Social Network (Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall)

Man, they just really didn’t like Inception, huh? I was also thinking that it’s been ages since all the Editing nominees were also up for Best Picture, but it turns out it was just last year.

Previously: I kind of wish I had one non-BP ringer in here, but I cannot begin to imagine what it would be.

Best Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland (Robert Stromberg; Karen O’Hara, Peter Young)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Stuart Craig; Stephanie McMillan)
Inception (Guy Dyas; Lisa Chugg, Paul Healy, Douglas A. Mowat)
The King’s Speech (Eve Stewart; Judy Farr)
Shutter Island (Dante Ferretti; Francesca Lo Schiavo)
True Grit (Jess Gonchor; Nancy Haigh)

Yessir, Alice in Wonderland is an Oscar nominee. How do you like that? But the Harry Potter nod is a pleasant surprise.

Previously: I would absolutely love to think that the tackiness of Alice in Wonderland can’t take hold here and elsewhere, but I’m also not a fucking idiot.

Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood)
Black Swan (Amy Westcott)
Burlesque (Michael Kaplan)
I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)
The King’s Speech (Jenny Beavan)
The Tempest (Sandy Powell)
True Grit (Mary Zophres)

Was not expecting I Am Love even the tiniest bit, probably my favorite surprise of the day. Though I am heartbroken that Burlesque missed out. And now we know: if Julie Taymor’s next film is about nuns in sackcloth, it gets nominated for Best Costume.

Previously: Every Julie Taymor film has hit here, but Christ, The Tempest was SO BAD, and not least for its sometimes ghastly costumes…

Best Makeup
Alice in Wonderland
Barney’s Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

Conveniently, I’m seeing The Way Back in just a couple of hours. And who would have thought that the Makeup Branch would be the one to block Alice‘s march? They fucking nominated Norbit.

Best Score
127 Hours (A.R. Rahman)
How To Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Inception (Hans Zimmer)
The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat)
The Social Network (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)

Third perfect category. I am officially rooting hardest for Reznor and Ross out of everybody nominated for anything.

Previously: I honestly have no real bead on this category after Zimmer & Desplat; my gut tells me Reznor and Ross are simply not possible, but the film is beloved.

Best Song
From 127 Hours: “If I Rise”
From Burlesque: “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me”
From Country Strong: “Coming Home”
From Tangled: “I See the Light”
From Toy Story 3: “We Belong Together”
From Waiting for “Superman”: “Shine”

NO! How did Burlesque miss here? HOW? And now I have to see Country Strong, goddammit.

On the plus side: the unexpected snub of Waiting for “Superman” was awfully nice.

Previously: Who knows. It’s a fucked-up category that deserves to die.

Best Sound
Black Swan
Inception

Salt
The Social Network
True Grit
Toy Story 3

Best Sound Editing
Black Swan
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy

Unstoppable

That is a remarkably small overlap between the two categories. Just two films? And one of them is True Grit? Fascinating. Shouldn’t have dropped Unstoppable at the last minute.

Previously: So hard to say. I’d like it if I had more overlap between them, and having two animated films in Sound Editing is self-evidently asinine.

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2
TRON: Legacy

I just want everybody to make sure that I’m totally a genius for that Hereafter thing? All bow down in my honor, right? Though in retrospect, I shouldn’t have picked Harry Potter as the film it would replace.

Incidentally, while the Academy doesn’t like Inception, they want to shiv TRON: Legacy and drop its body in a ditch.

Previous: My understanding is that VFX experts LOVE Hereafter, and they vote the nominees in. Call it my No Guts, No Glory pick of the year.

Best Animated Feature
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Tangled
Toy Story 3

Hooray! I feel bad for Tangled, but it was my #4, too.

Previously: I really think that all Tangled had to do was not suck. Becoming a good-size hit was just icing.

Best Foreign Language Film
Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Life Above All (South Africa)
Outside the Law (Algeria)

FUCK-ING A, DOGTOOTH IS AN OSCAR NOMINEE. Scratch what I said about I Am Love for costume, and Reznor/Ross as my rooting interest.

Previously: Or really, any of the eight finalists that aren’t Simple Simon.

Best Documentary

Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
The Tillman Story
Waiting for “Superman”
Waste Land

You know what, Waiting for “Superman”? If you wanted an Oscar, maybe you should have tried not sucking so goddamn hard. Almost as good as the Dogtooth surprise, right there.

Previously: I’m probably too war-heavy; I’m definitely too wide-release heavy. Just about the only real prediction I have is that I strongly think Exit Through the Gift Shop is too hip.