The Oscar temperature rises and falls like autumn caught between an Indian summer and November (errr, or something), but now that the Fall Film Festival season is completely over (except maybe for the AFI fest, but they have nothing new) the landscape has started to settle and we’re almost set in place.
The dirty little secret of Oscar prognosticating (at least to the Oscar predix sites who like to claim ownership over this field), is that it’s really not that difficult to surmise what’s going to happen (though, guys like Scott Feinberg and InContention are better at predicting the final winners than most).
Current happenings that have shaping the Oscar field this year is Terrence Malick’s “Tree Of Life” being officially pushed to 2010 (you’ll note we didn’t even put it in our pre-TIFF Oscar predix/temperature piece last time because we assumed as much) and last night another piece of the puzzle was revealed when we saw Mira Nair’s mostly tedious “Amelia,” that started out moderately enough (even then it wasn’t going to be anything more than a mild effort), but by the end rolled around had audiences listless and checking their watches.
We assumed as much before (and have basically been saying it all year), but we can all pretty much take “Amelia” out of contention at this year’s Oscars and yes, that includes Hilary Swank from the Best Actress category. It’ll only happen if nothing better comes along (i.e. a sad default nomination), but it’s a mild effort and not Oscar worthy.
So our predix for Best Oscar are pretty much where they were before, though we only posted eight because we didn’t want to shoe-horn others in, but it still pretty much feels like, “Up” will be able to squeeze in there (the mainstream pick?). So now we’re putting up nine, but the 10th slot?
“An Education”
“A Single Man”
“A Serious Man”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Invictus”
“Nine”
“Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”
“Up in the Air”
“Up”
???
“Lovely Bones”? Meh, by the looks of it, forget it. Saoirse Ronan might have a shot at Best Actress if she puts in a commanding performance. “Amelia”? See above, no chance. So what does that leave? Some claim James Cameron’s furry-winged action-fantasia, “Avatar,” which feels very doubtful. If it’s a revolution in anything that’s surely effects, but based on the 20 minutes of footage we saw — if one can judge the picture on that amount of time — there’s absolutely no way it’s scoring a nomination.
So again, what doest that leave? A picture we didn’t (or I didn’t) like, Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” which right now is sitting prettier as an option more than “Avatar” or ‘Lovely Bones,’ or our main hopeful, Jane Campion’s lovely and well-observed 19th century romance “Bright Star,” which has all the makings of an Oscar picture on paper. A couple years ago in the “conservative” Oscar era, this one would have been a shoo-in, not because the film is orthodox, but because superficially it possesses all the traits of a classical Oscar film of yore (amazing costumes, period-piece romances, strong performances, great set design, etc.). If it doesn’t score an Oscar nomination it’s not because it’s not deserving (it’s still one of the better pictures of the year frankly), it’s just that right now, it has zero buzz and needs a major backer to give it some shine. It doesn’t help that it went nowhere at the box-office and indie films breaking out of their ghetto usually need some sort of patronage or someone taking the picture under their aegis (New York Timers we’re looking in your direction).
Other logical possibilities include, Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” which has an outside shot. Illogical possibilities (we just comb Awards Daily for those) include “District 9,” “Julie and Julia” and “Capitalism: A Love Story.”
Some will note that buzz has dissipated on “A Single Man,” but wait til it’s released in December for another bump. One of these days we’ll post all our picks, but we do find it somewhat irksome posting predix on guesses and films we haven’t seen (though yes, none of us have seen “Invictus” or “Nine” yet).
