The Academy Awards nominations for 2010 have been announced and they're no surprise for anyone who's watched the Golden Globes or the SAGs. None the less, this is the big one where grown men and women are brought to tears by a puny golden statue. Yes, on Sunday 7th March all of Hollywood bow down to worship at the feet of Oscar. Some prepare their speeches, other practice their gracious in defeat faces. What will they wear? Who'll give the most talked about acceptance? And who will win the most coveted award of all... Best Film.
With less than a month of voting to go Steve and I decided to try to watch as many of the ten Best Picture nominations as possible. There's nothing more boring that a lack of investment in the envelop opening moment of suspense. This is a taller order than most years as 2010 sees twice the number of nominees than previous years but we have endeavoured to give it our best shot.
Already ticked off our Oscar list are: Avatar, District 9, Up in the Air, The Hurtlocker, Inlgorious Basterds and Up. We had hoped to add Precious to the list last night but our local multiplex doesn't seem to want to show it. Squeezing in between now and Sunday night: The Blind Side, Invictus and maybe even An Education if I can work out how to make the showing time! That will mean that of all ten best picture nominees we will only have missed A Serious Man and sadly Precious.
So far so surprising... the longer list of nominees makes room for some fantastic films that would otherwise not normally be considered Oscar worthy. I'm thinking of Pixars Up, with the most moving montage I've seen in any film let alone an animated feature, and District 9, one of my favourite films of 2009 with it's original spin on the aliens come to earth story. One of my greatest surprises was Quinten Tarentino's Inglorious Basterds. The opening scene or 'Chapter One' is a beautiful piece of cinematic suspense. The whole film, though violent enough that I spent portions of it asking Steve when I could uncover my eyes, is full of impressive performances and one liners that haunted me for hours after the DVD finished revolving.
My only let down was The Hurt Locker. By no means a bad film I think it suffered from the hype it's receiving as a front runner. It's well made with solid performances but I thought it was let down by the closing monologue. Still a great film, worthy of nomination but I hate to say it...
I still think Avatar should win.
I know that's not very cool of me, but I genuinely enjoyed it the most.
I'm assuming that Sky will show the usual next day highlights of the ceremony on Monday 8th March and if this proves true we're inviting our friends to join us in watching them (hopefully we'll manage to avoid the results during the day). Prediction ballots will be out and wine will be opened as we settle in for night with the glitterati. Anyone got any strong hopes? I'd love to hear about them... xc