It’s Sunday morning and I’ve got to get ready to fill out my Oscar ballot. I have never been very good at winning these contests. The only time I ever won (and that was in a tie for first place) was the year I ended up at an Oscar party dominated by movie biz know-nothings. Somehow all of their votes managed to be even more naïve than mine.
The way I see it there are two ways of voting in these Oscar contests: You can vote to win or you can vote with your heart. I used to vote to win, year after year, even though I never did. I continued to nurture the delusion that I could be a mind reader to that collective consciousness called Hollywood. I would go at my ballot, pen in hand, with all my puffed up cynicism, and no small amount of arrogant superiority, like the outcast in high school believing she can guess the results of the student popularity contest, even though she despises everyone on the ballot (I’m picturing Janeane Garofalo in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion).
Problem was I didn’t, and don’t, despise all of them. In any given year, many of the movies nominated I regard as mindless, or heartless, or just not up to standard, but many of them I genuinely love. So, if I loved Nominee #5 but cynically voted for the silly, audience-pandering Nominee #2 believing it had a better chance at winning the popularity contest, and then #5 ended up winning, I would hate myself for betraying the one I loved. How could I have so little faith in one I so profess to admire? As the years went on I came to dislike that feeling more and more, until one year I made a solemn vow: From now on, when it comes to Oscar ballots, I will only vote with my heart (unless faced with a category in which I have no favorite, then I’m allowed to vote to win).
All of this comes up this time around because this appears to be a year in which one could easily vote to win and actually win. All the indicators are right out there for the major categories (of course an Oscar ballot’s success is not dependent on the major categories, it’s all those little categories, many of which are full of films that no one could possibly have seen, that make or break it). Nonetheless, I am still determined to vote with my heart.
Here are my picks:
In the actor categories, the vote-to-win picks and the heart picks largely line up. Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz appear to be shoe-ins, and I loved both the performances and the films. Mo’Nique is also a pretty sure bet, and I was certainly in awe of that performance as well. But, while I also admired the film substantially, I will say the one problem I had with it was that all the “good” characters were 100% good and all the “bad” characters were 100% bad. This is not my understanding of human nature.
Now, on Best Actress is where I have to make the split. All the indicators are pointing to Sandra Bullock winning, but my heart is with Meryl Streep. I confess I never saw The Blind Side, and I do have plenty of regard and admiration of Sandra Bullock as an actress, but I just had so much fun watching Streep do Julia Child that I can’t possibly deny that experience.
As for Best Directing and Best Picture, in my previous post I made clear how I feel about Avatar in those categories, which leaves The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds as the main contenders. All indicators are that The Hurt Locker will win both. But, my heart is with Inglourious Basterds. And I will not betray it.
So, where does that take us? Just a minute while I consult the ballot I picked up at my local video store. Oh yeah, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Editing. For Art Direction, a vote-to-win should go to Avatar, but my heart says The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (in fact, I’ve been working on a blog comment about that film, so stay tuned). On Cinematography, I have no idea where a vote to win should go – Avatar is a joke (they created most of that look in the computer!), and Harry Potter and The White Ribbon are category fillers. So it’s between The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds. My guess is that Tarantino is going to be utterly and completely dissed this year. So I would have to say that a vote-to-win should go to The Hurt Locker. But my heart vote is going to The White Ribbon. (Have you seen it? The look is incredible!)
For Costume, they all seem pretty great. And I’m inclined to say the vote-to-win choice is Coco Before Chanel, even though it seems a bit like cheating since actually one of the greatest fashion designers in the history of the world designed all those “costumes.” There would be justice in Bright Star winning since it’s part of the premise of the story that the main character is a highly creative fashion designer. To grant Imaginarium the costume award would practically be an insult, since that film is about so much more than that. And Nine and Young Victoria are clearly category filler. My heart, I have to say, is caught between Bright Star and Coco Before Chanel. But, even though that last scene of the fashion runway in Chanel made me gasp in awe, I’ll have to give my heart vote to Bright Star because those costumes were actually designed for the film.
So, Editing. I never know how to evaluate editing. Seems to me the highest goal of good editing is that it should be invisible. So I look at a list of nominees and I’m trying to figure out in which film I noticed the editing the least. I look at this list and I have no idea. So I give my heart vote to the film that most has my heart in all of these categories: Inglourious Basterds. As for vote-to-win, can’t help you. You’re on your own.
Which leaves the two categories of most importance to me (and most likely to disappoint, year after year after year) – Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay. Oh, the pain of it all! For Best Adapted, my heart is with In the Loop (RENT IT!) but vote-to-win appears to be Up in the Air. Best Original is clearly going to The Hurt Locker, but my heart, as ever, remains with . . .
Inglourious Basterds!!! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
(I know. . . . It’s hopeless.)
Hi Jennine,
I wanted to point something out from your text: about the Cinematography award, you say, “Avatar is a joke (they created most of that look in the computer!)”.
I’m guessing “cinematography” here means the work of the Director of Photography (which we call “chef opérateur” in French). If so, please note that even “in the computer” the “lighters”, or “TDs” , under the supervision of the Lighting Supervisor and following the direction of the Director of Photography, are in charge of “lighting” the 3D scenes. Of course, they are using computer tools and specific tricks, but the goal is to achieve the same results. As a consequence, they use the same knowledge, savoir-faire, and constraints as they would on a “live action” movie. This is even more so when these computer-generated shots are to be composited with live action shots (on which the cinematographer worked more directly) because both kinds of images, obviously, have to match. I think this was the case with many of the shots in Avatar.
So, I wasn’t surprised to see this film in the list of nominees. Not at all.
If it was a totally different kind of animated film (like a Miyazaki movie, or “Logorama”, the French short animated winner) I’d say you’re right so say “joke”. But not in the case of “realistic-oriented” imagery (Harry Potter, Avatar, Star Trek, Terminator, Transformers, etc…) Even “Up” could have been in this category if we stretch it a bit.
IMHO.
March 8, 2010 @ 7:41 pm
Thank you, Quentin, for that clarification. I admit “joke” was perhaps too strong a word. Apologies to lighters and TDs for that. I also admit it was my old film purism seeping in. I’m from that generation that is still having to let go of celluloid as king. If it wasn’t finessed in the camera, it is somehow not as legitimate. Have patience with us. The love of physical film stock runs deep (film school memories of animating by scratching on the frames and such) and, for some, dies hard.
March 9, 2010 @ 2:18 pm