I LOVE LOVE LOVE the OSCARS! I picked up this habit when I lived in California because I worked for a guy who was obsessed with the Oscars and he would have a party where we would all fill out a pretend ballot and whoever got the most correct would win a price. It was a lot of fun and it got me hooked on watching the nominated films every year and trying to predict who would win.
It's a lot harder than you might think, even if you watch a lot of the films because there are awards for short films and documentaries that are almost impossible to get your hands on unless you live in a big city with a theatre who will show all the nominated movies. Plus, there are ten movies nominated for Best Picture which is really just riduclous in my mind. Toy Story? Please.
If you understand how the voting works you have an upper hand on the ordinary guesser. First of all, everyone in the Academy votes for Best Picture while only peers vote for the others (directors vote for Best Director, actors vote for actors, etc). Secondly, there is a lot of politics in Hollywood - it's really a lot like a high school. The cool kids have a better shot at winning and the production studios literally spend tens of millions of dollars campaigning for Oscar votes. I'm not talking about commercials I'm talking about ads in industry newspapers or hosting parties for members of the voting Academy that are simply to troll for votes. Why? Because if a studio wins an Oscar it's the golden ticket - millions of dollars in revenue from an automatic boost in theatre/DVD revenue and you can forever say "Academy Award winning..." So the politics combined with the weird taste in movies of the Academy makes it incredibly difficult to guess who will win.
Leading Actor: It will be either Jesse Eisenburg from "Social Network" or Colin Firth for "The King's Speech". Immediately after watching "Social Network" I figured Eisenburg would win this award, but that was before I had seen "The King's Speech". Both actors were amazing and the one who doesn't win will be second place. I would bet my life savings it will be one of the two and this in my opinion is probably the hardest vote to decide. I would have to vote for Colin Firth because although Eisenburg did a great job, I personally think that it's much more difficult to pretend to stutter when you don't have that problem than it is to act like a too-smart for your own good Harvard nerd.
Side note 2: This is not a glaring situation, but studios can actually influence who is the "leading" and who is the "supporting" actor to give their movies a better chance of winning by again using the trade magazines to their advantage (see above). Bale is the supporting actor in this film, but it could be argued that he is just as much of a leading actor as Marky Mark. Without Bale's character there is no movie, but Bale would have had a much more difficult time winning in the leading category because the competition is stiffer while he will easily win in the supporting category. By the way, I felt bad for Marky Mark in this film because he was so completely overshadowed by Bale's acting. It was probably a purposeful casting decision and a smart one at that.
Leading Actress - It's aggravating that I've only seen "Black Swan" out of all the movies nominated in this category so I really don't know. I will vote for Annette Benning because like I said above, she is the cool kid here. Could be Natalie Portman because she did have to work hard to do the ballerina thing, but it should be one or the other.
Director, Film Editing, Original Score, and Adapted Screenwriting- Again, I know nothing about any of these, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say "The Social Network". All of these categories basically contributed to making America love a movie about how a website was created. Think about it. They deserve the awards.
Best Picture - I hate that there are ten nominations. Really, they should just pick how many they want each year and not force a number. I think there should probably be four nominees: The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Fighter, and 127 Hours. I haven't seen all the nominees, but Inception is not worthy of being mentioned at the Oscars and Black Swan and True Grit are overrated. Good movies, but not Best Picture worthy. Anyway, notice any trends here? How much does the Academy love movies about the Royal Family, boxers and biopics? About as much as we all want Simon Cowell back on American Idol. Take a minute to review previous nominees and winners and you'll see. Just look at the last five years and it's apparently obvious.
Here's my thoughts on the movies and who I think will win. If you haven't seen any of them yet then I highly suggest you rent or go to the movies to watch some of the favorites so you can yell at your tv screen all night like me!! Here are my thoughts on who will win. If I'm totally wrong don't come back Sun night or Mon to point and laugh at me because I'm not taking the time to look up the current front-runner. I'm literally just going by my own opinions here.
I'm only guessing the major awards because really, I have no idea about foreign language films than I do about, uh, foreign language in general.
Leading Actor: It will be either Jesse Eisenburg from "Social Network" or Colin Firth for "The King's Speech". Immediately after watching "Social Network" I figured Eisenburg would win this award, but that was before I had seen "The King's Speech". Both actors were amazing and the one who doesn't win will be second place. I would bet my life savings it will be one of the two and this in my opinion is probably the hardest vote to decide. I would have to vote for Colin Firth because although Eisenburg did a great job, I personally think that it's much more difficult to pretend to stutter when you don't have that problem than it is to act like a too-smart for your own good Harvard nerd.
Supporting Actor: Hands down it will be Christian Bale from "The Fighter". This is probably the easiest award to predict and if he doesn't win security better watch out for Kanye West to come on stage and interrupt the award-winner's speech. It is commonly said in Hollywood that actors win awards by playing horrible characters such as drug addicts, hookers, serial killers, etc and this will be no exception.
Side note 1: I used to be in l-o-v-e with Christian Bale because he was in a movie my brother and I were obsessed with called "Newsies". Haha! Sadly, he looks nothing like this, or like himself, in "The Fighter".
Side note 1: I used to be in l-o-v-e with Christian Bale because he was in a movie my brother and I were obsessed with called "Newsies". Haha! Sadly, he looks nothing like this, or like himself, in "The Fighter".
Side note 2: This is not a glaring situation, but studios can actually influence who is the "leading" and who is the "supporting" actor to give their movies a better chance of winning by again using the trade magazines to their advantage (see above). Bale is the supporting actor in this film, but it could be argued that he is just as much of a leading actor as Marky Mark. Without Bale's character there is no movie, but Bale would have had a much more difficult time winning in the leading category because the competition is stiffer while he will easily win in the supporting category. By the way, I felt bad for Marky Mark in this film because he was so completely overshadowed by Bale's acting. It was probably a purposeful casting decision and a smart one at that.
Leading Actress - It's aggravating that I've only seen "Black Swan" out of all the movies nominated in this category so I really don't know. I will vote for Annette Benning because like I said above, she is the cool kid here. Could be Natalie Portman because she did have to work hard to do the ballerina thing, but it should be one or the other.
Supporting Actress - Melissa Leo from "The Fighter". This movie had the best supporting cast ever! All the women in Marky-Mark's family were HIGH-larious! All the way home from the movie theatre Brad and I talked about where they found these crazy actresses!! Watch for Helena Bonham Carter to pretend that she doesn't care who wins. She is one of those who tries a little too hard to pretend not to care. Don't know who she is? Look for the bird's nest hair. Sorry, Helena, it's true.
Animated Film - Duh, Toy Story 3.
Director, Film Editing, Original Score, and Adapted Screenwriting- Again, I know nothing about any of these, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say "The Social Network". All of these categories basically contributed to making America love a movie about how a website was created. Think about it. They deserve the awards.
Best Picture - I hate that there are ten nominations. Really, they should just pick how many they want each year and not force a number. I think there should probably be four nominees: The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Fighter, and 127 Hours. I haven't seen all the nominees, but Inception is not worthy of being mentioned at the Oscars and Black Swan and True Grit are overrated. Good movies, but not Best Picture worthy. Anyway, notice any trends here? How much does the Academy love movies about the Royal Family, boxers and biopics? About as much as we all want Simon Cowell back on American Idol. Take a minute to review previous nominees and winners and you'll see. Just look at the last five years and it's apparently obvious.
The award will either go to The King's Speech or The Social Network. I would vote for The Social Network simply because I could not stop thinking about this movie after I watched it, and because I believe the Best Picture winner should be a movie that is representative of the times in America. What will tell our grandkids we did in 2010? We will tell them we wasted all our time using Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging! That's what. Not only that, but the movie is also about wanting more greed, power and money than you ever need and that is also what America is about today, unfortunately. The King's Speech could win just because all the old people in the Academy don't understand what Facebook is, but I do think that ultimately all their grandkids will tell them to vote for The Social Network.
Are you excited now? I know I am!!
Are you excited now? I know I am!!
1 comment:
Tori, this is a hardcore post. I had NO CLUE you were this into the award shows. Its pretty interesting that you do this pretend ballot. So I guess you are back from vacation, I will call you this afternoon.
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