My Awards (Screenplays and Techs)

Screenplay Categories:

Best Original Screenplay:
1. Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
2. Bob Peterson and Pete Docter (Up)
3. Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Bastards)
4. James Cameron (Avatar)
5. Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber (500 Days of Summer)

My Winner- Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)


Best Adapted Screenplay:
1. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air)
2. Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers (Where the Wild Things Are)
3. Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious)
4. Anthony Peckham (Invictus)
5. Nick Hornby (An Education)

My Winner- Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air)


Tech Categories:

Best Editing:
1. The Hurt Locker
2. Up in the Air
3. Avatar
4. Inglorious Bastards
5. Precious

My Winner- The Hurt Locker


Best Cinematography:
1. The Hurt Locker
2. Avatar
3. Where the Wild Things Are
4. Inglorious Bastards
5. The Road

My Winner- The Hurt Locker


Best Art Direction:
1. Nine
2. Where the Wild Things Are
3. The Young Victoria
4. Inglorious Bastards
5. Avatar

My Winner- Nine


Best Costume Design:
1. The Young Victoria
2. Nine
3. Public Enemies
4. Where the Wild Things Are
5. Inglorious Bastards

My Winner- The Young Victoria


Best Makeup:
1. District 9
2. Star Trek
3. Watchmen

My Winner- District 9


Best Sound Editing:
1. Avatar
2. Star Trek
3. Up
4. Public Enemies
5. The Hurt Locker

My Winner- Avatar


Best Sound Mixing:
1. Avatar
2. Star Trek
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Up
5. Public Enemies

My Winner- Avatar


Best Visual Effects:
1. Avatar
2. Star Trek
3. District 9

My Winner- Avatar

My Awards (Directing and Acting Categories)

Best Director:

1. Katherine Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
2. James Cameron (Avatar)
3. Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Bastards)
4. Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
5. Lee Daniels (Precious)

My Winner- Katherine Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)

Best Actor:

1. Jeff Bridges as washed-up country singer Bad Blake (Crazy Heart)
2. George Clooney as corporate jet-setter Ryan Bingham (Up in the Air)
3. Jeremy Renner as U.S Army bomb squad SFC William James (The Hurt Locker)
4. Viggo Mortensen as the post-apocolyptic wanderer protecting his son (The Road)
5. Morgan Freeman as South African President Nelson Mandela (Invictus)

My Winner- Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)

Best Actress:

1. Meryl Streep as cooking legend Julia Childs (Julie and Julia)
2. Sandra Bullock as adoptive mother Leigh Anne Tuohy (The Blind Side)
3. Carey Mulligan as coming of age British girl Jenny Mellor (An Education)
4. Zooey Deschanel as endearing and quirky girlfriend Summer Finn (500 Days of Summer)
5. Gabourey Sidibe as heartbreaking inner-city mother Precious Jones (Precious)

My Winner- Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Christopher Waltz as chilling and intelligent German SS Col. Hans Landa (Inglorious Bastards)
2. Anthony Mackie as U. S Army bomb squad Sgt. JT Sanborn (The Hurt Locker)
3. Peter Saarsgard as cultural romantic love interest David Goldman (An Education)
4. Jackie Earl Haley as the morally questionable masked protector Rorschach (Watchmen)
5. Alfred Molina as socially awkward and overprotective father Jack Mellor (An Education)

My Winner- Christopher Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Mo'Nique as mentally and physically abusive mother Mary Jones (Precious)
2. Vera Farmiga as career woman and love interest Alex Goran (Up in the Air)
3. Anna Kendrick as recent college grad trying to make a splash in the corporate world Natalie Keener (Up in the Air)
4. Melanie Laurent as Jewish movie theatre owner set on revenge Shoshanna (Inglorious Bastards)
5. Marrion Cotillard as lonely and betrayed wife Luisa Contini (Nine)

My Winner- Mo'Nique (Precious)

My Awards

To open things back up I have decided to run down the list of my choices for Oscars. We will know the actual nominations on Tuesday and I will spend the rest of the month breaking down those categories, but for right now these nominations are purely the movies I think deserve recognition.

Best Picture:

Note- This year the Oscars have decided to include 10 films in this category instead of the traditional 5. In my opinion this is a terrible decision that is purely motivated by TV ratings in an attempt to include more "mainstream" and "popular" movies that the producers are hoping will convince viewers who normally would not be interested to tune in. My logic tells me that just because somebodies favorite movie is nominated for best picture with no chance of winning, that fact alone is not going to convince them to watch if they were not planning to anyway. This is one case where I think more is not necessarily better. In the past it was considered an honor just to be nominated and I have a feeling that some of the nominees this year not fit that bill as there were not 10 "great" movies this year. The interesting wrinkle that this does provide is trying to figure out how the academy will fill those extra 5 spots. Will they simply include what they consider to be the next 5 best movies? I don't think that will be the case. It is my hunch that the academy will use their extra 5 slots to incorporate movies they feel will most entice average moviegoers to tune in. In other words this change is brought on by the perceived huge loss of viewers last year because The Dark Knight was not nominated. Keeping that in mind I would not be surprised to see some very interesting nominees this year ie. (The Hangover anyone?). Anyways back to my nominations. Remember these are not my predictions for what will be nominated, they are simply what I would nominate.

1. The Hurt Locker

2.Up in the Air

3. Avatar

4. Inglorious Bastards

5. (500) Days of Summer

6. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

7. The Blind Side

8. Up

9. Where the Wild Things Are

10. Nine

My Winner- The Hurt Locker

-Commentary on these films will be available with the discussions following the actual nominations.

Oscar Time (Grand Re-Opening)

Well its that time of year again. January has come to a close and the Oscars are a month away. I realize I faded off on my ramblings over the past year, but I am ready to pick it up again and keep one of my new year's resolutions which is to stay up to date with this blog for the whole year. I figure there is no better time than right now to make that happen. The Oscar nominee announcements will be this Tuesday (Feb 2), so I think the best way to kick this off will be with my Oscar nominations. 2009 was a decent year for film with several standout great movies along with a slew of mediocre work. All in all I saw 54 movies this year and I still have a few I want to see before the big night, so I am reserving the right to change of few of my nominations but feel pretty certain there won't be any changes at the top. With all that said its time to get rolling. As always I appreciate feedback (positive or negative), comments, and suggestions. Enjoy!