Oscar Nominations 2010

So, the nominations for this years' 82nd academy awards have been announced, and as usual, there are few surprises. Not much in the way of comedy, and there is a preference for worthy, preachy movies with lots of hammy acting (you know who you are The Blind Side and Precious). But the odd decent film, like Armando Iannucci's caustic political satire In The Loop has thankfully managed to sneak through. 

Reaffirming Hollywood's ability to win stuff on it's own turf after last years' big shock with Slumdog Millionaire, I predict a big sweep by James Cameron's Avatar. As previously predicted by myself, The Hurt Locker's gritty documentary style portrayal of life on the front line of bomb disposal in Iraq has won fans in the Academy, setting up a rather juicy confrontation for director Kathryn Bigelow with her former husband James Cameron. And of course, there's a big noise going for Sandra Bullocks' performance in The Blind Side. 


I'm glad to see Austrian Christoph Waltz in there for his show (and heart) stopping performance as Colonel Landa in  Inglourious Basterds, and District 9, with its' South Africa location taking it outside the usual Academy Award territory.
Here are the nominations in full, with a 'H' for my Hack bet for who will win:

Best Picture      

Avatar 'H'

The Blind Side

District 9

An Education

The Hurt Locker

Inglourious Basterds

A Serious Man

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Up

Up in the Air

Best Director

Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker 'H'

James Cameron – Avatar

Lee Daniels – Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Jason Reitman – Up in the Air

Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds 

Best Actor          

Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart as Bad Blake

George Clooney – Up in the Air as Ryan Bingham

Colin Firth – A Single Man as George Falconer

Morgan Freeman – Invictus as Nelson Mandela

Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker as Sgt. William James 'H'

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side as Leigh Anne Tuohy 'H'

Helen Mirren – The Last Station as Sofya Tolstoy

Carey Mulligan – An Education as Jenny Miller

Gabourey Sidibe – Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire as Clarieece "Precious" Jones

Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia as Julia Child

Best Supporting Actor  

Matt Damon – Invictus as François Pienaar

Woody Harrelson – The Messenger as Capt. Tony Stone

Christopher Plummer – The Last Station as Leo Tolstoy

Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones as George Harvey

Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds as Col. Hans Landa 'H' (pictured)

Best Supporting Actress

Penélope Cruz – Nine as Carla Albanese

Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air as Alex Goran 'H'

Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart as Jean Craddock

Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air as Natalie Keener

Mo'Nique – Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire as Mary Lee Johnston

Best Original Screenplay             

The Hurt Locker – Mark Boal

Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino

The Messenger – Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman

A Serious Man – Joel Coen and Ethan Coen 'H'

Up – Tom McCarthy, Bob Peterson and Pete Docter

Best Adapted Screenplay

District 9 – Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

An Education – Nick Hornby

In the Loop – Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Ianucci and Tony Roche

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire – Geoffrey Fletcher

Up in the Air – Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Best Animated Feature

Coraline – Henry Selick

Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson

The Princess and the Frog – Ron Clements and John Musker

The Secret of Kells – Tomm Moore

Up – Pete Docter 'H' (pictured left)

Best Foreign Language Film

Ajami (Israel) in Arabic and Hebrew – Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani

El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Argentina) in Spanish – Juan José Campanella

The Milk of Sorrow (Peru) in Spanish and Quechua – Claudia Llosa

A Prophet (France) in French, Corsican and Arabic – Jacques Audiard 'H'

The White Ribbon (Germany) in German – Michael Haneke

Best Films of 2009 : Moon (Dir. Duncan Jones)

There's nothing like a bit of old-fashioned futurism. Back in the 70s and early 80s, cinema produced a series of science fiction movies that not only excited the eyes and ears of the public, but captured their imagination, dealing with powerful, challenging issues raised by the anticipated shock of man's mastery of the physical and biological universe, environmental disaster, and the rapid advancement of technology. Whether it was Alien, Kubrick's 2001 or Ridley Scott's poetic visual masterpiece Blade Runner, moviemakers were capturing a golden (space) age of cinema. Sadly it wasn't to last.

Roll on today, to the execrable crashes and bangs of Michael Bay's Transformers, and people, or at least movie executives that call the shots, prefer pure spectacle to being challenged to ponder the big questions of mans' place in the big scheme of things. James Cameron's Avatar being the billion-dollar exception that proves the rule, of course.

Child of the 70s Duncan Jones (and son of the Man Who Fell to Earth and original space cadet, David Bowie) has created what in many ways is a love letter to that lost age of sci-fi. The action sees Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell, pictured), an employee of Lunar Industries alone working a 3 year contract on the far side of the moon, extracting a rare, precious mineral required for clean energy back on earth. His only company is the a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey, whos reassuring voice nannys Sam like Red Dwarf's Kryten, while at the same time appearing to manipulate him, like 2001's Hal 9000. What is he hiding?

The story begins with Sam coming to the end of his time on the moon. He is like a spacebound Robinson Crusoe, having forged a life for himself building matchstick models to entertain himself and occupy his mind, when he begins experiencing a series of visions, which raise his suspicion, causing him to investigate matters, and, well, I can't share much more without giving the story away, but suffice to say, the situation, and indeed, he himself, is not who he thinks he is.

A recurring theme of movies this type is the corrosive effect corporate greed can have, rejecting the sanctity of life for the cold comfort of the financial bottom line, and in this sense, Moon is very much reminiscent of flicks like Blade Runner, and Alien : large economic forces are at work, abusing technology at the expense of social norms, forcing people to act in ways that are contrary to their human instinct, and regardless of the cost of human life. in Blade Runner, Deckard is made to "retire" replicants despite emerging understanding that they are capable of something approaching humanity, in Aliens - corporations want to capture and use the aliens for biological warefare, as a product to be researched, harnessed, and sold, irrespective of the expense of human lives lost in the process. Here, minerals from the moon must be mined at minimum cost to the business, even if it means repeatedly (*****PLOT SPOILER HERE***) cloning the one individual trained and capable to do the job.

There's little in the way of overt "action", but Moon still manages to be completely engaging for its' entirety. The on screen interest lies not in explosions and effects, but in an incredible performance by Sam Rockwell, which must surely be worth of an Oscar nomination. He has hitherto ploughed a furrow in indie flicks (he pops up in Blow and Frost/Nixon), and the odd big budget movie (remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?), but largely as an unremarkable, but excellent character actor in secondary roles. Here, he is the movie, and what he achieves is incredible. (***MORE PLOT SPOILING***) Through his exploration of the various iterations of the character of Sam Bell, he explores brilliantly the nature of the human experience, provoking existential questions. What makes us who we are? Is it our memories? Our emotions? Our relationships with other people? Or our experiences?

In conclusion then, Moon is a truly wonderful movie, and though I suspect the Oscar interest this season will go the way of movies like The Hurt Locker, Up, and Up In The Air, for me this is by far more superior to any of the obvious candidates.

Hack Rating 5/5

Best Films of 2009: The Hurt Locker (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

The Hurt Locker is the most recent attempt at capturing events in the current US / Allied occupation of Iraq, following the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power in 2003. Depicting war is a tricky and difficult task, always raising questions of authenticity: It takes years, sometimes decades, for an accurate appraisal of the war as a political, moral and historical event, and perhaps we're too close to events in this recent middle east altercation to really get to the truth.

What I've been hoping for, if I'm honest, in relation to this current conflict, is an angry portrayal of  it as the poorly thought-out, badly executed, and morally vacuous action it is, leading to the death of over 100,000 Iraqis. It would be good to finally see the implicating of political leaders like Bush and Blair as power-hungry Neo-Con meglomaniacs, and the true motivation being a cash bonanza for oil companies and defence contractors, the old military-industrial complex that was at fault for Vietnam, not the non-existent "weapons of mass destruction".

The Hurt Locker isn't that movie. One of last year's most critically acclaimed movies was written by freelance writer Mark Boal, who spent time emedded in an American bomb disposal squad in war-torn Iraq. The result is a mixture of action thriller and cinema verite. It follows a bomb disposal unit as they are sent out each day to diffuse bombs, praying to come back intact, and counting each minute until make it to the end of their tour of duty. When their much admired leader (a brief, excellent cameo from Guy Pearce) dies on a disposal mission, Lt James (Jeremy Renner, pictured above) is drafted in to take over as their leader and disposal expert. But James is unstable, and rather than wanting to stay alive, he's a "wildman", more intent on going for glory, and living off the heady intoxication of enemy contact, and the dangers of being blown up. His wreckless ways put him at odds with his team, and Sgt JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) in particular, as they put themselves at risk with each mission, coming closer and closer to death each time.

While there are stabs at putting the actions of these aggressive, macho grunts in a political context (Lt James arrives to base to discover it has changed names from Camp Liberty to Camp Victory), it is the madness of humanity in these insanity-inducing conditions that becomes the point of focus, the kind of stuff well-captured in Apocalypse Now. War is seen as a dangerous lark for boys, an exciting rush, "fun", as one soldier calls it on the one hand, but the reality of constant fear, mistrust of every foreign face, and death is never far away. It's a disturbing but exhilerating experience, and the attention to detail by Boal and Bigelow is to be applauded, as the personalities of the actors ring true as they clash, as risks are taken, tempers fray, and people die.

However, The Hurt Locker ends in an unsatisfactory manner for me, incomplete, one that would not satiate the publics' desire for a jingoistic action thriller, nor mine for a moral inventory of the conflict. Having said that, it's the most compelling, authentic portrayal of the Iraq war and its' aftermath to date, to be viewed as experiential rather than moral, and for that reason, it warrants viewing, and if predictions are to be believed, it's certainly worth watching out for at this years' Oscars.

Hack Rating: 3.5/5

The Hurt Locker - Trailer
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