Academy Awards, Part Deux

So, since I started on Sunday with some picks; I might as well continue.

Today's Blog will be about Director, Actor and Actress.

Best Director

Here we get to pick from: Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker", James Cameron for "Avatar", Lee Daniels for "Precious", Jason Reitman for "Up In The Air" and Quentin Tarantino for "Inglorious Basterds".

I've seen three (Locker, Avatar and Basterds); and I haven't seen the other two (Precious and Up In The Air).

Academy pick for winner is: The Hurt Locker. Who I'd Really Love To Win: Inglorious Basterds. Same reasons as I gave on Sunday.

Best Actor

Here we get to pick from:

Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) -- I did not see this movie. But I am totally in love with Jeff Bridges. I will watch this movie when it comes out on DVD. The synopsis is: "A faded country music musician is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life during a doomed romance that also inspires him". This sounds like "Academy fodder"*: which is stuff that the Academy really likes to see (see last year with Mickey Rourke and "The Wrestler"). I really think he's going to win the Academy Award for this part.

George Clooney (Up In The Air) -- Here's another actor that I love. George seems to be playing the same type of guy: suave, good looking, in a nutshell: George Clooney. And this film seems (from the preview, since I haven't seen it) to be him acting like that; George being George. I guess I'll just have to wait until I see the film to change my opinion of it. It'll be a surprise for me if he's picked the winner.

Colin Firth (A Single Man) -- [Mr. Darcy. What can I say, I love Mr. Darcy.] Colin Firth is yet another favorite of mine. But this is yet another movie that I haven't seen. It's another period piece (1962 this) and it deals with strife that the Academy seems to love ("an English professor at a Los Angeles area college is finding it difficult to cope with life when Jim, his personal partner of sixteen years, dies in a car accident"). I am looking forward to seeing this film, and I really do hope that Colin wins, but I don't think he will.

Morgan Freeman (Invictus) -- Easily the perfect casting role ever. Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. But yet again, this is another movie that didn't draw my attention enough for me to bother to go see it in the theatre. So far this is 4 for 4 on favorite actors for me; but I just don't think this is going to be the year for Morgan to win the Oscar.

Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) -- He plays Staff Sergeant William James. The movie's supposed to be about the whole squad that defuses bombs in Iraq, but he's the main person (this is after Guy Pierce [yet another favorite of mine] gets blown up) who the movie focuses on. I don't think he's gonna win the oscar. (Hey Conlon, he's rumored to be "Hawkeye" in the Avengers movie: what's your thought on that?)

Winner (& who I'd love to win): Jeff Bridges.

Best Actress

Here we get to pick from: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side); Helen Mirren (The Last Station); Carey Mulligan (An Education); Gabourey Sidible (Precious); and Meryl Streep (Julia & Julie).

I've already written about The Blind Side, An Education, and Precious (on Sunday).

Helen Mirren (The Last Station): This is "A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things". Yet another movie that screams "Academy Award". It's just that you could not pay me enough money to watch this movie. It sounds too boring. Even if it has Christopher Plummer (who was fantastic in "Up" as Charle Munz, but will always be "Captain" to me [from Sound of Music]) and James McAvoy (an up and coming cutey) in it. I'm sorry, I just can't.

and

Meryl Streep (Julia & Julie): I saw this movie on DVD, and loved her and Stanley Tucci's roles. Meryl is perfect as Julia Childs. I wished they had made the whole movie with just Meryl and Stanley as Julia and Paul and cut out the Amy Adams stuff [She plays a blogger who wrote a blog where, for 1 year, she attempts to make all of Julia Child's recipes from Julia's first book. Julia Child never gave this Julie lady her blessing (it said so in the movie).] Will she win: she should, but I don't think so.

Academy winner: Sandra Bullock. Who I'd Love To Win: Meryl Streep (because she was just so excellent in her part); but I think Sandra's going to beat her this time.

Which brings me to this thought: what lousy choices. The Academy Awards say that their choices are from the whole year. [Well I was going to say B.S. to that. But I just checked a list of movies that came out from 1/1/09 to 12/31/09 and I only found three movies that I thought were really good and should have been nominated for something (acting mainly):

Last Chance Harvey (Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson) -- He's a down on his luck kind of guy who meets up with Emma Thompson who makes life better for him. I liked it a lot and I thought they both gave good performances;

Moon (Sam Rockwell) -- he plays a man on the moon serving out a 3 year mission. The movie begins near the end of the 3 years. Sam (yet another favorite of mine) does a wonderful job basically acting against himself. Kevin Spacey voices the robot (GERTY) that's on the station with Sam. And this was directed by Duncan Jones (formerly known as Zowie Bowie (David's son)). Duncan did a fantastic job directing this movie (and yet he gets bupkiss from the Academy for his efforts). NASA asked for this film to be screened for them, because of certain mining techniques he came up with. They wanted to question him about it--which I think is really cool; and

The Soloist (Robert Downey, Jr. and Jamie Fox) which is a movie that I thought would also be Academy fodder (based on a true story: check; two solid performances by the leads: check; one of the lead characters has a mental handicap: check). This movie screamed nomination; or at least in the past it would have. It seems that Jaimie Fox "shot himself in the foot". (A week or two before the movie opened, on his radio show that he has, he said something to upset all the "Hannah Montana" fans/mommies out there...I don't know what he said, but apparently it was enough to drive people away from this movie).]

In the past I have found more movies or parts that were screwed, but I guess the Academy got it right this year.

Oh well, more later...Booboo.

*"Academy Fodder": Any type of movie that seems to be made specifically with the Academy in mind -- mainly historical pieces, but also includes people that are in "bad places" (physical or theoretical) who bring themselves up out of it and make their life better; or the always popular 'based on a true story' (which is more likely than not the director(s) vision of a true story (but he didn't really like it, so he wanted to change it 'just a bit')). There are more reasons: I just can't think of them right now.