Oscars - Blanked on the Writing: 58.3%

If you need a quick recap to get this started, my original thoughts are here:

Part One
Part Two

And now, on to the winners. My correct answer/guesses are in bold for your viewing pleasure...

Best Picture
The Hurt Locker
Despite the “scandal” surrounding a certain producer lobbying for votes then being banned from the ceremonies for his efforts, it is Hurt Locker for the win.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Not surprised, although it would have been awesome to see Jeremy Renner win. He was awesome in 28 Weeks Later, and most everything I’ve seen him in – even SWAT).

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Again, no surprise, but I wonder if she might have worn the Academy down just a bit. Still, happy about the win.

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
She is 58. She directed Point Break and Near Dark. She is the deserved winner…

Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
As I said, it can’t not be Waltz. He did a brilliant job and turned what could have been a strictly evil character into a funny, frightening and incredibly unique performance.

Best Supporting Actress
Mo'Nique, Precious
Of all the nominee clips, Mo’nique’s really did stand way out. That being said, Anna Kendrick looks like she did some nice work too. Twilight? Really?

Best Animated Feature
Up!
Wish we could have at least had a small cut-away to Gaiman in the audience for Coraline, but no surprise. Pixar is near enough to flawless as can be..

Best Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
My first miss, and it’s in a writing category! I’m actually really happy to have been wrong and Boal’s story is a fascinating one, but Quentin Tarantino still delivered his most accomplished film to-date.

Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Jeffrey Fletcher, Precious
It’s funny that doing a full length version of your own short is considered an adapted screenplay. It’s funny that Nick Hornby continues to surprise me. It’s funny that Jason Reitman is getting a lot of backlash all of a sudden for no reason. Also funny? I was blanked in the writing categories…

Best Art Direction
Avatar
I called it, and it seemed fairly straight forward, but there really was some fantastic work in this category.

Best Cinematography
Mauro Fiore, Avatar
I threw two names into the hat, and didn’t even factor in the 3-D equation. Should have thought of it really…

Best Costume Design
The Young Victoria
Missed this one too. It’s tough choosing whether period pieces deserve the win for their intricacy, and apparently our winner agrees – low budget, modern day designers deserve as much, if not more credit. “This award is for them, but I’m taking it home with me”.

Best Documentary
The Cove
They all look extremely interesting, but I am happy to have been right. A heavily stacked category, but I’m going with The Cove, a clandestine examination of annual Japanese slaughter of dolphins and the efforts that former Flipper-trainer Ric O’Barry has taken to expose the practice.

Best Documentary - Short Feature
Music by Prudence
Prudence, which looks as interesting as the rest of them. Turns out the weird woman that rushed the stage during the speech was the producer and she has been in a feud with the director for some time now.

Best Editing
The Hurt Locker
A deserved win for sure – so many tense scenes in that movie, consistently ramping up. Basterds as well though, as far as my pick goes…

Best Foreign Film
El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentina
No White Ribbon, but they all looked very good.

Best Makeup
Star Trek
I said: "Star Trek by a hair, although this category often favours period makeup over creature prosthetics, so…" So what? Star Trek for the win.

Best Original Score
Up!, Michael Giacchino
Michael Ginacchino for Up! The guy behind Alias and Lost. Awesome acceptance speech about it being okay for kids to be creative and they should stick with it.

Best Original Song
"The Weary Kind", Crazy Heart, Ryan Bingham & T-Bone Burnett
"The Weary Kind". Not sure why I liked it for the win, but that was my call. Was a little more likely after winning at the Globes as well.

Best Animated Short Film
Logorama
Wallace and Grommit defeated by Corporate America. Still, Logorama looks pretty awesome (and took six years to put its 16 minutes together. Trailer

Best Live Action Short Film
The New Tenants
I still don’t see The Lake on this list… Kavi didn’t win, but this one does look like a good picture..

Best Sound Editing
The Hurt Locker
So it was not Avatar. I am all right with that. Again, The Hurt Locker, which did have some impressive scenes, but it is a tough category. As is…

Best Sound Mixing
The Hurt Locker
I said: "Just to shake things up, I’ll go with The Hurt Locker on this one. Go ahead, tell me I’m hedging my bets, but that’s my call." I was right!

Best Visual Effects
Avatar
Avatar. The whole movie has redefined the industry, or at least propelled it ahead in new direction, so this is no surprise…

SO, 58.3% not great, but not horrible considering the vast amount of wild-guessery I had to do. It was awesome to see both Roger Corman and the tribute to Horror movies (I had seen them all except New Moon, which is way better than 58.3%). There were a few surprises for me this year, but none of them bad. Hurt Locker did better than I expected. Avatar did too.

58.3% might not be the best score, but I got all the big ones right. in Hollywood, that's all that matters. Most movies would consider a second weekend drop of 58.3% to be a job well done, so I guess I can think the same of my prognostications.

Secret Confession...

So, I have actually been very busy with all the stuff previously mentioned, especially the plotting how to capture decent footage in Cuba on a budget... It's been great and distracting and wonderful (and is probably the secret/subtle cause of my wrye neck) and it is going to have to end soon.

It's time for us to get back to work, or me at least. I've had a great winter writing wise. Let's do a little tally:

One Last Time
Untitled Ghost Script
Some Things Are...

Three shorts ready to shoot and one treatment ready for filling out (currently operating as The Boogeyman) so not a bad off season. Also, not a winter script in the bunch, which was kind of a goal this year. With the weather being how it is, I could probably crank out one of the many ideas drifting through my head fairly quickly to make something happen, but if we're going to do an outdoor winter shoot - it needs to count. Whatever the case, I'm itching to get back in front of, and behind, the camera. It is a pretty liberating experience that helps me put things into perspective.

There is another little thing that is keeping me unfocused at the moment. My novel and three quarters. While technically two separate beasts, one of them is actually finished in first draft form and I really need to get my head back into the right space to polish, shine, and ship it out. I put a ton of work into that story (a little over a year) and am actually very happy with the results. It's time to get back into the groove and make something happen with that one, a little story I have been referring to as I Land. The other one is actually better than I remember, having revisited the first two chapters recently, but first things first right?

As for the other three scripts - they're ready to go. What would you like to see first? Or would you prefer something totally different. I can do that too... Wait, I Land. Must. Finish. I Land.

Check back soon. I've got a couple more posts to squeeze in before my big Oscar recap success/failure piece. For those unaware, the predictions are here:

PART 1
PART 2

See you in a day or two!

Oscar Predictions - Part I

Every year I do this and every year I come close to a perfect set of predictions. Not bad considering the limited number of films that actually make it through this neck of the woods. This is going to be a fairly long two-parter, so without further adieu, the predictions for this year:

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up!
Up in the Air

The Hurt Locker. Why? I’ve been calling this one for months now, and I’m sticking to my guns, despite what the Hollywood Foreign Press thinks. It’s nice to see District 9 in there, the better of the two ‘alien’ movies in my mind, but The Hurt Locker has been the little movie that could since Sundance ‘09.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

George Clooney, Up in the Air

Colin Firth, A Single Man

Morgan Freeman, Invictus

Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Jeff Bridges. It would be nice to see Jeremy Renner take this for the sheer upset alone, but I think Hollywood is going to choose Bridges as much for his contributions over the years as for this particular role.

Best Actress

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Carey Mulligan, An Education

Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Meryl Streep, Julia and Julia

Sandra Bullock. Carey Mulligan was an early favourite, but she seems to have drifted to the sidelines and Hollywood loves their “stars”. From what I have heard, Bullock does a good job, but I’m not sure she would be my pick, even though she is.

Best Director

James Cameron, Avatar

Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Lee Daniels, Precious

Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Kathryn Bigelow. This will be the first time a female has won the Best Director award, which means there will be buzz and publicity aplenty surrounding the choice. As long as I don’t have to sit through more self-servicing nonsense from Cameron I’m happy, but this one is all about Bigelow. Point Break and Near Dark were not so long ago...

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon, Invictus

Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

It can’t not be Waltz. He did a brilliant job and turned what could have been a strictly evil character into a funny, frightening and incredibly unique performance.

Best Supporting Actress

Penelope Cruz, Nine

Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart

Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

Mo'Nique, Precious

I’d have to guess Mo’Nique, although I’ve heard wonderful things about the ladies of Up In The Air and Penelope Cruz looks all right dancing around in her underwear. Being where I am though, I haven’t had the chance to see any of these performances yet though.

Best Animated Feature

Coraline

Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Princess and the Frog

The Secret of the Kells

Up!

As much as I would like to see Coraline win, being a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's work, I know it’s going to be Up! I think this category was created especially for Pixar, but there is no denying the quality of their work. And Up! Was a wonderful movie, and deserves the win.

Best Screenplay

Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Allessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger

Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - A Serious Man

Pete Docter & Bob Peterson - Up!

Quentin Tarantino will win and deservedly so for his most accomplished film to-date. The Coens are always favourites, but this will be Quentin’s award.

Best Screenplay (Adapted)

District 9

An Education

In the Loop

Precious

Up in the Air

A bit of a tough category, but I think this is where Up In The Air will finally get some love. That being said, I would love to see Nick Hornby take the win for An Education.

Best Art Direction

Avatar

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Nine

Sherlock Holmes

The Young Victoria

Avatar won’t be shut out and is a shoe in for this award. It would be nice to see Gilliam get some love for the maligned Parnassus, but this is Avatar’s win.

Best Cinematography

Mauro Fiore, Avatar

Bruno Delbonnel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker

Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds

Christian Berger, The White Ribbon

I think Richardson by a hair over Ackroyd, although it would be interesting to see Haneke’s bleak (and black & white) White Ribbon win. And the latest Potter film really was nicely filmed, but I’m sticking with Richardson.

Best Costume Design

Bright Star

Coco Before Chanel

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Nine

The Young Victoria

Again, it would be nice to see Gilliam’s film take this award, but how do you compete against Coco Chanel? My gut is with Nine (although I usually tank this category if there isn’t a Lord of the Rings film in the running).

Part II to follow!