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A Serious Man [Coens]

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sean:
what do you think would win though?

when i looked at the list i thought "oh huh, i would not of really of thought to nominate any of these films"

KvP:
They could surprise us, but generally (and I think this has been gone over in another thread) there's a certain kind of politics that goes into the Oscars. If a movie is a lock for a certain category it will often be overlooked in other categories. It's a glorified trade show, more or less. Now that the Weinstein's don't have a lot of Oscar muscle anymore it tends to come down to what got all the critical praise, what was most popular, and what the Academy feels is most "relevant" (see: Crash) A Serious Man was pretty divisive. It got critical approval but not enthusiastic praise. It's a difficult movie to explain (damn near impossible to explain in a sentence, unlike, say, Avatar), it's straight-up deadpan comedy about a middle-aged Jewish guy in middle America, with no Names outside the director's chair. Whether or not it's any good is sort of beside the fact that no one has seen it and it is far and away the least sexy nominee.

Anyway, the dramatic narrative since the Golden Globes has been James Cameron vs. Kathryn Bigelow. Avatar stands to win because it was huge, but one should also consider that the whole reason they expanded the Best Picture list to 10 was because they felt their lack of consideration to big-tent pictures was turning people off. They might give it to Avatar because they didn't even put The Dark Knight in the running last year. Up in the Air could certainly make it, it was the odds-on favorite before the Golden Globes and it's an agreeable (if not all that great) movie.

Up is in the animation ghetto, I wouldn't expect it to win. Precious has a best supporting actress statue locked in, the director is being a dickhead in public (and he's not James Cameron), and like A Serious Man it is not sexy at all. An Education was very well-reviewed but nobody saw it, so it's The Reader of 2010. No love for genre pictures = no love for District 9, plus no stars in that film. Who knows what the fuck The Blind Side is doing there. Inglorious Basterds will probably net a Screenplay statue, plus that movie fucking sucked.

Inlander:
From my long observation of the craven mediocracy that is the Academy Awards, I'd say Avatar is the safest bet for Best Picture. It overcomes its genre handicap (science fiction! The horror!) by being a Big Vision picture; although for that same reason it could very well get bumped for Best Picture but pick up Best Director. The Blind Side hasn't opened in Australia yet so I don't really know anything about it, but judging by the trailer it's apparently about a poor, stupid black kid being taken under the wing of an affluent middle-class white family, and that's just the kind of cringe-inducing self-congratulation that's tailor made for Academy voters (witness Crash winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain). Up could easily win Best Picture because, apart from being a genuinely good film (if not a great one), it was universally adored and it represents the irresistable (to an Academy voter) combination of safe bet (everyone loves it so no-one will criticise it winning) with a thin veneer of risk-taking (oh my god, an animation as Best Picture! Astonishing!). District 9 is merely making up the numbers to make it look like the Oscars are way hipper and edgier than they actually are; ditto Inglourious Basterds and Up in the Air; An Education is a token gesture to the English but will ultimately be seen as too English and too "small" to win Best Picture; likewise Precious, only substitute urban black people for the English. A Serious Man is only there for the edge, too, and because it's a relatively safe choice seeing as how the Coens won with No Country for Old Men; if they hadn't won that then A Serious Man wouldn't be anywhere to be seen at these Oscars. The Hurt Locker only just opened today in Australia so I haven't seen it, but it looks to be a "feel bad" film and they just don't win the Oscars.

David_Dovey:

--- Quote from: Inlander on 17 Feb 2010, 21:42 ---Up in the Air could easily win Best Picture because, apart from being a genuinely good film (if not a great one), it was universally adored and it represents the irresistable (to an Academy voter) combination of safe bet (everyone loves it so no-one will criticise it winning) with a thin veneer of risk-taking (oh my god, an animation as Best Picture! Astonishing!).

--- End quote ---

I'm sure this is just the result of a typo but it's still bending my brain.

Also hey Up was fucking amazing and I've seen it like three/four times and have literally bawled my eyes out every time (no mean feat for a film to get me to do it at all, let alone on repeat viewings where I know what is coming). I'd honestly rate it as better than Wall-E if only because Wall-E really flags for me once they hit the spaceship when compared to the frankly revelatory first act whereas Up has it's not-as-interesting-points but then for only brief periods.

Also also dude paragraph breaks.

Inlander:
Up for me really suffered from the same thing that so soured the end of Shrek: the almost casual way in which the main villain is killed. It's an uplifting story about love and friendship and adventure and about how if you're a bad guy then you've forfeited your right to life.

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