Looking Ahead: Predictions for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards

The most exciting time in Cinema is nearly upon us, as the 82nd Academy Awards are set to kick off in 22 days. While much of the spotlight right now is on the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver where I was born, I am with the exception of the Hockey competition looking ahead to March 7th. Despite the fact that the Oscars have already made a few screwups (inflating the Best Picture category, nominating anything to do with The Blind Side etc.), it still promises to be a good year. So who's in the race?

Best Picture:
-Nominated: An Education, Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air

This is really a two-horse race at this stage. The noble steeds? James Cameron's Avatar and The Hurt Locker, the breakthrough effort of Cameron's former wife Kathryn Bigelow. Avatar is of course, the talk of moviegoers everywhere as the film has grossed over $2.2 billion dollars, an astounding figure. Avatar also walked away with the Best Picture - Drama award at the Golden Globes. On the other hand, The Hurt Locker, while a critical darling (last I checked it clocked in at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the highest ratings for a Best Picture nominee ever), has not made waves at the box office, bringing in $16.1 million total. Avatar, despite entering its ninth weekend at the box office, will likely surpass that number. With a box office bigger than that of its nine contenders combined, Avatar is looking pretty as Best Picture Winner.

Eh, not so fast. The Hurt Locker is not without its strengths either. The Hurt Locker is this year's recipient of the Producer's Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture. For those keeping score at home, five of the last nine PGA winners have gone on to win Best Picture. As well, The Hurt Locker has gathered 14 Critic's Circle Awards, while Avatar has just one.

Another strength for the film is to possibly discredit Avatar's Golden Globe win. The Golden Globes, run by the Hollywood Foreign Press, are not afraid to show their bias - the Best Motion Picture winner is usually a film helmed by a foreign director. While James Cameron is not your typical case, he is Canadian, and that is good enough. Since 1995, only three American directors have had films that walk away with the award, those being Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan, Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind, and Martin Scorsese for The Aviator.

Avatar has another major problem. Despite earning nine Academy nominations, which ties it with The Hurt Locker for the most this year, none of them are for acting or screenwriting. To find the last film which achieved the feat of winning Best Picture without any writing or acting nominations, we'd have to travel back almost 80 years - 1932's Grand Hotel was the last and only second film to do so. Inaugural Best Picture winner Wings also accomplished the feat - understandably, as it was a silent film. The Hurt Locker of course, has a Best Actor nod for Jeremy Renner and Best Original Screenplay nomination for Mark Boal.

So who will be this year's victor? If money has anything to do with it, Avatar will walk away the victor. If the Academy merely recognizes that nominating a major money maker is enough to get people to watch the Awards, they will go with The Hurt Locker.

So what do I think? I'm going to have to side with The Hurt Locker. Avatar was truly amazing as a visual experience, and it will likely be the first movie I have seen in theatres twice since 1999 as even my crappy theatre has decided to show the 3D version, but that's where it ends. As indicated by the Academy, Avatar has disposable acting, a plain story that cinema has seen before, and dialogue and song choices that are cringe-worthy. Eh, who knows. This hype could all be a red herring. Maybe at the end of the night, it will be the cast and crew of Inglourious Basterds with their hands held high.

I'll handle the acting awards in my next post.