I’ve never watched a Super Bowl (no, not even for the commercials), have a very vague idea as to how football even works (though thats improved significantly thanks to Friday Night Lights.. now I know there’s something called a “touch down” involved and that the most sought after position on the field is something called a “quartered back”).
However, this photo from last night’s game (thanks, Eug!), is amazing. And thus, my first and last Super Bowl related post:
So says Forbes magazine. Economist (yes, economist.. not sports guru) Daniel Johnson included this chart in the magazine, which suggests for the first time ever, Canada will get the most Olympic medals. We’ve actually never won a gold medal on home soil, so the suggestion that things could go this far in our favor makes me more excited than I’d like to admit (I LOVE me some winter Olympics, equally due to hockey and figure skating, as it should be for any gay Canadian boy). Johnson’s chart:
So yesterday I wrote a story on indieWIRE that relayed Oscar possibilities for next year via thoughts on some films I saw last week at Sundance. And it got me thinking about the dozen or so 2010 theatrical releases I’ve already seen, whether at Sundance or at various festivals last year. True to my list geek nature, this thought process resulted in coming up with what my 2010 personal award choices would look like if they only included the films I’ve already seen. And, frankly, it was no struggle to come up with a very worthy batch of awards, particularly in the “best actress” category, where I couldn’t even narrow it down to 5 for the life of me. Instead I deicded to just include the 10 fabulous female performances that should make any list making impossible come December considering how many 2010 films (97% of them?) I’ve yet to even see. There’s already no filler there: From “I Killed My Mother”‘s Anne Dorval to “I Am Love”‘s Tilda Swinton to “The Kids Are All Right” duo of Bening and Moore, these are all performances worthy of awards attention.
While its doubtful a lot of these will end up in the actual awards mix come a year from now (though one can dream), I suspect a lot of them will in fact end up on my personal best of. It’s looking to be quite the year for film, and another fantastic year for cinematic women (half of my current top ten is female-helmed):
2010 Top Ten
1. I Am Love
2. A Prophet
3. The Kids Are All Right
4. Everyone Else
5. Please Give
6. I Killed My Mother
7. Cyrus
8. Fish Tank
9. Blue Valentine
10. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Director:
Maren Ade, Everyone Else
Jacques Audiard, A Prophet
Lisa Cholochenko, The Kids Are All Right
Luca Guadagnino, I Am Love
Nicole Holofcener, Please Give
Actor:
Xavier Dolan, I Killed My Mother
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
John C. Reilly, Cyrus
Tamir Rahim, A Prophet
Actress:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Anne Dorval, I Killed My Mother
Katie Jarvis, Fish Tank
Catherine Keener, Please Give
Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Vincere
Birgit Minichmayr, Everyone Else
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right
Tilda Swinton, I Am Love
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Best Supporting Actor:
Adel Bencherif, A Prophet
Michael Fassbender, Fish Tank
Jonah Hill, Cyrus
Bill Murray, Get Low
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Best Supporting Actress:
Ann Morgan Guilbert, Please Give
Rebecca Hall, Please Give
Marisa Tomei, Cyrus
Mia Wasikowska, The Kids Are All Right
Kierston Wareing, Fish Tank
It’s still a whopping month away and I’m sort of burnt out with regard to caring that much, but I figure I might as well get the winner prediction ball rolling on what looks like a fairly predictable Oscar race. I’m putting an asterisk beside the categories that actually seem to have a race going down… At this point, original screenplay, actress, foreign language film, and - thanks to this new preferential ballot - best picture, all could go a few different ways. My guesses as of now:
Best Picture: The Hurt Locker*
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side*
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, Precious
Best Original Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds*
Best Adapted Screenplay: Up In The Air
Best Animated Feature: Up
Best Foreign Language Film: A Prophet*
Best Documentary Feature: The Cove
Best Film Editing: The Hurt Locker*
Best Cinematography: The Hurt Locker*
Best Art Direction: Avatar
Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria
Best Original Score: Up*
Best Original Song: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart
Best Sound Mixing: Avatar*
Best Sound Editing: Avatar
Best Visual Effects: Avatar
Best Makeup: Star Trek*
Let’s get this out of the way: Get the full, mostly uninspired (we knew it was coming, but Matt Damon in “Invictus”?) list here. My list of the 10 biggest surprises is up over at indieWIRE. As for my predictions?
Picture: 9/10
Acting: 18/20
Directing: 5/5
Screenplay: 8/10
The Rest: 42/61
That gives me an overall 82/106. I can live with that. My year in advance predictions, however…
Also.. and I’m sure the fact that I find this really fascinating puts me in the minority.. but check out this chart of the box office grosses of this year’s best picture nominees. Its the highest average gross since 1997’s “Titanic”-fueled year (where the average was $199 million), but these 10 films still have some money left in them, so that record could be overthrown. They wanted populism.. they got it. Care of boxofficemojo.com:
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