›› OSCAR CHALLENGE
ingly at the burned-out Bad Blake for award credibility. Mo’Nique, on the other hand, put the “glee” back into neglect in Precious. Our pick: Mo’Nique
Duel in the Sun
Our picks in the 2nd annual Pacific Sun Oscar Challenge— it’s time to let the free movie tickets fall where they may... Everything E is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and an in here is the dream —Jake Scully in Avatar
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COMING SOON Compare your picks with ours at the California Film Institute’s Oscar Night America—watch the awards live in the Rafael’s main theater, win raffle prizes, bid in a silent auction and eat like a star. March 7, doors open at 3:30pm. $55 general; $40 CFI members. Call 415/526-5841 or cafilm.org.
lot of people felt just like Jake when Avatar became the front runner for the 82nd Academy A Awards. What reason is there for an even less-substantial remake of Disney’s Pocah Pocahontas to be on the same nominee list of fut future classics as The Hurt Locker, An Ed Education, A Serious Man and District 99? There are about 2 billion reasons, aactually. Few have forgotten the results the last time Cameron had a critically dubious box-office-record breaker released during Academy Awards season—Titanic walked off with 11 Oscars. And the idea of a specialeffects-driven popcorn movie cleaning up at an “artistic achievement” awards ceremony proved no anomaly six years later when The Return of the King won each of the 11 Oscars for which it was nominated. Lesson learned: Avatar may win a few awards this Sunday. But we’ll see. The Hurt Locker and director Kathryn Bigelow could benefit from an Avatar/ James Cameron backlash or the Academy’s new 10-nominee Best Picture list may dilute the pool so much that a dark horse like Up in the Air or An Education can pull off an upset. Below are our predictions for this Sunday’s 82nd Academy Awards. Again, all entries that correctly pick more winners than our on-staff movie experts will win tickets for two to a film at the Rafael Film Center. Whoever gets the highest total out of all entries will receive a 2010 Gold Star membership to the California Film Institute, which includes discounts on regular screenings (two $5.50 tickets per membership all year!), exclusive “members-only” screenings, more Rafael Film Center passes, discounts on Mill Valley Film Festival tickets and more. The entry deadline was March 3 at 5pm—any entries received after that will not be counted.—Jason Walsh
Actor, Leading This comes down to George Clooney playing George Clooney, Colin Firth playing a gay(er) Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman as a misplaced-priorities-defining Nelson Mandela and Jeremy Renner as “Who’s Jeremy Renner...?” We’ll take Jeff Bridges as Kris Kristofferson. ‘Cause freedom’s just another word for nuthin’ left to lose. Our pick: Jeff Bridges
Actor, Supporting Christoph Waltz has won so many awards for his role as the “Jew Hunter” in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds that he may pull off a Nobel and a Pulitzer for it simply through gravitational pull. Too bad, because Woody Harrelson deserves this ever so slightly more for The Messenger. Our pick: Christoph Waltz
12 PACIFIC SUN MARCH 5 - MARCH 11, 2010
They’re calling this “the 1939 of animation” in reference to that famed year that saw more “classics” released than any year before or since. (It’s all relative b.s.; the sound-crazy 1930s was a particularly weak decade for cinema.) Still, we’re not predicting Fantastic Mr. Fox or The Princess and the Frog will be mentioned in the same breath as Waltz With Bashir, Spirited Away or the The Triplets of Belleville—to name a few recent greats— anytime soon. Same can’t be said for Up or Coraline. Our hearts are with Coraline, but our head says, “Pick the one the Academy also nominated for best picture.” Our pick: Up
Actress, Leading It’s moviegoer memory apocrypha that suggests Meryl Streep has won a ton of Oscars. She’s been nominated 16 times, received a supporting actress award for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979 and her lone lead-actress win in 1982 for Sophie’s Choice. The last time she won an Oscar, two of her 2010 actress-nominee competitors weren’t even born. Will the Academy finally get it through their thick heads that Streep hasn’t already “had her turn”? Our pick: Sandra Bullock
Art Direction Technically speaking, Avatar isn’t a movie that called for impressive art direction, it’s impressive art direction that called for a movie. Our pick: Avatar
Visual Effects This one’s such a lock they only bothered to nominate three films. Our pick: Avatar
Best Picture We wrongly thought no one would pay attention last time a self-important, recordbreaking, special-effects-laden, woodendialogued James Cameron love story came out—and that’s only in reference to the director’s fifth marriage. The Hurt Locker will have its day in film history books of the future; Avatar gets March 7. Fool us once with Titanic, shame on you; fool us a second time with Avatar... Our pick: Avatar
Animated Feature
Cinematography
Actress, Supporting Kind of an off-year for female support. The Up in the Air actresses will cancel each other out, Penelope Cruz won last year and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s moon eyes gazed far too ador-
A tough one, as the Academy has never favored overly digitized, effects-laden films. Still, even without all the blue humanoids and their flying Leonopteryx pals, the views of New Zealand are pretty striking. Our pick: Avatar