BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

It’s great that District 9, which was made for about 1/15 of the budget of Avatar, is nominated for best visual effects. This is a tough one, but I gotta go with Star Trek for my personal fave. Avatar will win though, no doubt.

BEST SOUND MIXING
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

All great, but I was most impressed with Transformers. Bay has a really weird layering style, which makes me think of Robert Altman directing Buck Rogers, or something.

BEST SOUND EDITING
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Star Trek
Up

Hmmm. . . Think I gotta go with Avatar on that one.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

Never seen ’em.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Ditto. But Loaf and Death is a Wallace & Gromit, which means it’s tits.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Almost There”, The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans”, The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname”, Paris 36, Reinhardt Wagner & Frank Thomas
“Take it All”, Nine, Maury Weston
“The Weary Kind”, Crazy Heart, Ryan Bingham & T-Bone Burnett

I can only speak for the Newman songs, but those were both good. But not great.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Sherlock Holmes
Up

I liked the music in Up quite a bit.

BEST MAKEUP
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

I’m a nerd, so. . . Star Trek?!?!! Emily Blunt doesn’t need fucking makeup; Her beauty is primordial.

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Ajami
El Secreto de rus Ojos
The Milk of Sorrow
Un Prophet
The White Ribbon

Because if it’s foreign, it can’t be best picture? Time to do away with this category, especially since there are 10 nominees now. Haven’t seen any of these; Can’t wait to see A Prophet and White Ribbon.

BEST EDITING
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Great nominations all around, but it would be a crime if Hurt Locker didn’t win this. How Bigelow manages to maintain that level of tension throughout the running time is nothing short of remarkable.

BEST DOCUMENTARY – SHORT FEATURE
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Lost Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit a la Berlin

There is no convenient medium for me to watch these. Just saying.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

I’ve only seen The Cove, which was very entertaining. Which one of these is the Holocaust doc? There’s gotta be one every year.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Parnassus for me, though I admittedly know next to nothing about fashion or aesthetics.

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

Again, I haven’t seen White Ribbon, but Basterds was bastard good. It’ll be interesting to see how this category changes with increased use of digital fx; What did Fiore do on the Avatar set? I’m not knocking his craft, I just honestly don’t know. I’ll have to watch the dvd special features when that comes out.

BEST ART DIRECTION
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

I really liked the design of Avatar. Hoo-ah!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
District 9
An Education
In the Loop
Precious
Up in the Air

District 9 is adapted?!?! From what, the short film? Interesting. Um, the british movies. In The Loop is amazing.

BEST ORIGINAL 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

The screenplay awards always go to the “cool” movies, so Basterds will win this, and not undeservedly so. My favorite of this list is A Serious Man.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of the Kells
Up

Coraline, you’re the reason for the word “bitch”. Fuck Wes Anderson; don’t know what Secret of the Kells is; Up is a fantastic movie but the ending is terrible. . . The Princess and the Frog. Fuck the haters. But, y’know. . . Up is a great movie, and will win. Which is good. Why does this category exist?

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

Alright America, you can get over Maggie Gyllenhaal. She’s like a fetish for people who had stern mothers, or something. Anna Kendrick can give a good performance in a Twilight film, which is saying something, but I have no plans to ever see any Jason Reitman movies. Mo’Nique is a lock, and she was great.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christolph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Christoph Waltz has made this category his bitch. He and Sharlto Copley gave the performances of the year.

BEST DIRECTOR
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

Fuck Precious and Reitman. Tarantino was the most artistic, Cameron was the most groundbreaking, but Bigelow was the maestro here. Hurt Locker plays the audience like a fiddle; If that movie were in IMAX 3D, the theater would literally be covered in shit stains. Glad to see you break out of director jail, Kathryn!

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia

Man, this one is gonna be close! Have no idea what The Last Station is. Ooo, The Blind Side; Hollywood loves it when the white man helps out those born with a more unfortunate shade of melanin. I kinda hope Sidibe wins this, because she isn’t actually going to have a career, but Meryl Streep is great in Julie and Julia. And kind of reminds me of my girlfriend.

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

Also, why do acting awards have to be separated by sex? Get with the times, academy. Renner is great, but Bridges is also supposed to be really good. Let me guess; Clooney plays himself? The dude is a movie star, and a great one, not an actor.

And finally. . .

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

That’s a good, solid list of movies. Except for The Blind Side, of course. Of the films listed, my favorite would be A Serious Man. My realistic favorite is The Hurt Locker. But, I’m kind of torn. . . One thing I really respect about the MTV Movie Awards, besides the fact that they’re actually fun to watch, is that their Best Picture winners are actually the real Movie Of The Year. And, if we’re being honest, Avatar is the Movie Of The Year, and a pretty good one at that.

Another part of me says “When do we ever give a shit about the Movie Of The Year, a year from now?”. Does anyone talk about A Beautiful Mind anymore? No, they talk about Moulin Rouge. How about Shakespeare In Love? Nah. . . The Big Lebowski.

Also, where the fuck is Where The Wild Things Are?! No, fuck that; WHERE THE FUCK IS IN THE LOOP?!?!!! Oh, yeah; It got Blind-sided.

All things told, I’m glad to see the Oscars climb back to some kind of respectability, after their nadir in the 90’s. Well, as respectable as you can be while pitting works of art against each other in a brutal cage match, in an attempt to reach some “objective” truth.

But, y’know, Christina Hendricks might show up to the ceremony, and her boobies are big.

Reverend out.