Clearly overdue, I realize. I apologize. But here's a series that will assure more consistent posting on my behalf showing how I'd rank the chances each respective nominee has of winning in each of the major categories.
Best Picture:
1. The Hurt Locker - 75%
2. Inglourious Basterds - 15%
3. Precious - 7%
4. Avatar - 3%
5. Up in the Air - 0%
6. Up - 0%
7. District 9 - 0%
8. An Education - 0%
9. A Serious Man - 0%
10. The Blind Side - 0%
Something all Best Picture winners seem to need are nominations in directing, acting, writing and editing. Each like a checkmark, and if you have all of those then you're more or less set. You don't need EVERY single one (Slumdog went without any acting nominations, as did Lord of the Rings. Titanic didn't have a Screenplay nomination. There's hardly a nominee as obvious as any of those were, though). Three of these ten nominees has managed to crack all the bases — The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, and Precious. In alphabetical order and that's the order I imagine are in the top 3 in contention to win.
It's hard to argue with a PGA, DGA, likely WGA and nominations in the SAG. This is The Hurt Locker. It would be the lowest grossing nominee at the box office to win in many many years, and I'd imagine the least grossing if you take inflation into account. That being said, if it had been released at this time of year then it would certainly get the box office bump that most Best Picture contenders released later in the year do, as it is doing very well in DVD sales. People are seeing this movie. Critics hail it as among the best of the decade. It is at the historic helm of a woman who many in the Academy have fallen in love with and would love to have her break their glass ceiling. Quentin Tarantino calls Katheryn Bigelow that "Queen of directors." It tied a movie with the enormous scope and size of Avatar to have the most nominees this year — much more than expected. The DGA winner aligns with the Best Director winner at the Oscars 90% of the time — which usually correlates to a joint Picture win. At the same time, the DGA is often better at predicting the Best Picture winner.
Thus, I place The Hurt Locker as a heavy odds-on favorite to win the whole thing.
Runner up, I'd imagine, is potentially Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece — Inglourious Basterds. After finally letting go hopes of Nine, Harvey Weinstein is going balls out on this one; asserting that the film will most certainly win the whole thing and blitzkrieging AMPAS voters with cheap DVD copies of the film (as was always going to be the plan). Billboard signs and entertainment magazine advertisements right and left, with the star of the show — Quentin Tarantino — making the rounds on the campaign trail. Quentin Tarantino restored some prestige, respect and honor to his name after a divisive decade of film making with this film — his highest grossing and most honored since Pulp Fiction. In fact, with 8 nominations and the second most nominated of the year, it surpasses Fiction in nominee count and Tarantino is likely to deliver his very first actor to an actual Oscar statuette (Christoph Waltz, obviously) after 4 previous actors of his being nominated in the past. Actors, in fact, really like this film, rewarding it with the Screen Actor's Guild Ensemble prize which has, as of late, been akin to more of a Best Picture prize on behalf of the SAG (rewarding more prestige pics rather than Ensemble pieces along the lines of Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men; luckily, Inglourious Basterds is also a clearly strong Ensemble piece). And, might I remind everyone, actors make up the largest constituency out of all the branches of the Academy. Actor support, as well as the always loyal group of Tarantino fans in the industry, and most others who seem to at least respect the film. The new method of preferential ballot count that rewards consensus over passion can really help Basterds in this regard, especially since it seems to have both consensus and passion. With a lock in an acting category and frontrunner in the writing category, Inglourious Basterds surely has the biggest chance of upsetting in this race.
Third out of the three frontrunners in this race, in my opinion, is Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. Many have argued, especially recently, that Precious peaked far too early and lost enough steam to make an impact on the Oscars. True, it peaked too early for it to make an impact on the award's season in general, but it was still a clearly visible force and always had its supporters. Its backlash came from internet bloggers who might hold some sway in early precursor moods but never in the longrun of the actual Academy Awards. At this point, Precious has the luck of having had peaked early enough to have its backlash wear away as was clear with these nominations. Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Editing. Many people asserted that Precious would not have cracked a top five, that Lee Daniels would miss out on a Director mention, and most people thought it had no chance at Editing. Precious managed to prove the naysaying internet community wrong, as it would most certainly have made the top 5 and even had enough support to get the shock, and crucial, Editing nomination (without which a film has not won since 1981. Among those films, the ill fated Brokeback Mountain). Editors seem to have important sway in the Academy, the directors thought Lee Daniels did a fine job (I love how anti-fanbots try to discredit his direction as if THEY know the fine craft of directorial duties), the ever important acting branch found it worthy of two acting mentions, and the film has been nominated for every single important Guild award — PGA, DGA, SAG, WGA. Mo'Nique has been a lock to win since its premiere last February at Sundance, an astounding staying power of buzz despite many angry demands to not reward her for her so called "diva" behavior (or more like everyone's racially predisposed biases against someone like Mo'Nique being taken seriously). Similarly to the history making of The Hurt Locker, Precious is the first Best Picture nominee directed by an African American and Lee Daniels is only the second African American nominee ever for Best Director (and funnily enough, also the second gay black director). He doesn't have much of a shot at breaking that glass ceiling as Bigelow does, but the race is certainly open in Adapted Screenplay and Gabourey Sidibe has a chance of breaking through the only semi-open acting category this year in Lead Actress. Lionsgate is going executing an excellent strategy at making the energetic and enormously lovable Sidibe the face of the Precious campaign, as she's been going around the interview and promotional circuit since the release of the film and will continue through the awards season — which will also impress Academy voters to see how she really is as opposed to how she performed in the film. That's enough chances in enough major categories to upset for the top prize.
Here is where we start to get to the scenarios of the negatives outweighing the positive. I give Avatar a 5% chance of winning which might surprise some people and you might be able to blame on my own biases against the film, but I only give it even that much of a chance due to its loyal fan following. Just looking at the figures, it doesn't seem to have much of a statistical shot at winning. People pointing to box office as evidence of the film's chances are kidding themselves — it could help that everyone's seen it, but at the same time that could hurt it. There are enough detractors to this film, particularly in the huge acting branch who don't want the industry to shift to motion capturing, that in the preferential system of balloting will rank Avatar as lowly as possible in order for its votes to get bogged down. It has the passion but unfortunately, it just doesn't have the consensus. Yes, it is the highest grossing film of the year — bar none. But if you look at the past string of winners, you'll notice that they haven't been the box office champs in their respective years. I can point to Titanic and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as the highest grossing in their respective years, but none of the other Best Picture winners in between them. Not to mention, both won more Oscars than poor Avatar has even been nominated for. Avatar couldn't even break the double digit count and only comes out as the most nominated film of the year with 9 tied with The Hurt Locker — a film on a drastically lesser scope and built on a shoestring budget. Not like Avatar. It didn't even get a nomination for the SAG Ensemble prize, and no film other than Bravehart in the Guild's (albeit, short) awards history has been able to win Best Picture without a nomination there. No film since Grand Hotel in 1932 has managed to win Best Picture without nominations in screenplay or acting. Avatar has neither of those. Avatar lost the Producer's Guild Award that it was heavily expected to clinch, and has no shot at winning any other guild. No film has ever managed to win without a single Guild win to its name since the inception of the SAG awards in the early 90s. James Cameron hasn't been doing himself any favors, either, coming across as only more snug than his Titanic days with a new hairdo that makes him look like George Washington's lesbian sister. The numbers are simply not on Avatar's side.
The case of Up in the Air is a tragic one, really, marking the first of the remaining six contenders that I give as having literally no shot whatsoever at winning the top prize. As opposed to Precious, Up in the Air peaked at absolutely the worst possible time. And by the time it was supposed to peak, most of its buzz was eaten away by the monstrosity of Avatar's box office performance. Despite 3 nominations, the SAG did not give it its Ensemble nomination akin to Best Picture. As we mentioned in the paragraph above, that is crucial. I do suspect that Jason Reitman was actually the most vulnerable of the five directors nominated. George Clooney looked to have been sweeping his way through the precursors to the Oscars until Jeff Bridges suddenly came in as a last minute contender as Fox Searchlight moved Crazy Heart to open in time for eligibility, sensing an opening in that race. Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga both split a certain constituency of voters and would not have a shot against the towering presence of Mo'Nique, anyhow. And, most devastating blow of all, the visibly edited Up in the Air did not get a mention in Best Editing (losing out to Precious showing more passion for that film than this). Without even the passionate fans that are possessed by Avatar, international inaccessibility, and odds of winning nothing more than a consolation Screenplay prize, I'd say Up in the Air is dead in the water.
Now as we exit the inevitable top 5 and go into the worthless 6-10 slots, I figure the one that is the most universally admired and would benefit the most from preferential voting is Up. Still, though, it isn't even that much more admired than the other fantastic animated offerings of the year, and many still would rather see animated restricted to its Oscar ghetto of Best Animated Feature, and not count among the top pool of live action offerings. In any case, the safe nomination for Up was more of a make up for the universally adored Pixar studios and paves the way for a Pixar film to one day win the whole thing — something WALL·E deserved to accomplish last year. It'll get its prize in the Best Animated Feature category and for its already iconic score by the overdue Michael Giacchino.
District 9 is the alternative sci-fi offering made on a third of the budget of Avatar — just with more original social commentary and much better writing. And, I would argue, more realistically integrated visual effects. Many detractors of Avatar will try to rank District 9 a lot higher in order to influence the results of the preferential ballot, and though a lot must respect it, it doesn't have quite enough love it for it to be in real contention for the win.
An Education certainly thrives on the love of it in the British constituency, making up a surprising voting block in the Academy. Tipping the balance in favor of underdogs like Tilda Swinton, Marion Cotillard, and Alan Arkin in the past, if a movie is very well received than it will certainly make a splash in the Oscars (at least in terms of the nominations). This is hardly Atonement, however, which won the top BAFTA prize and made it into the top 5 in Best Picture that year with 7 nominations total, the British love for An Education seemed only to extend as far as 3 nominations (as opposed to 8 BAFTA mentions). This suggests to me that it is very weak, that Carey Mulligan is a much weaker contender than we all thought in the beginning of the race, and that it probably won't even manage to top out in the BAFTA ceremony this year. Depending on its success there, this could be pushed even higher — but more likely I'll push it even lower.
A Serious Man (or, Life Sucks) has its supporters, surely at least among the Jewish contingent in Hollywood, but most of the passion comes from the writing branch and not much else. With one of two movies with the distinction of having only one other nomination other than Picture, this (sadly) ain't goin anywhere.
The Blind Side is the luckiest of the nominees to be here. Characteristic of the criticisms/praises that the extended Best Picture slots allows for lesser prestige pics and more mainstream fare to make it in the top 10, this film made it on the love and passion for Sandra Bullock's performance which is the only other nomination this film managed to muster. With some backlash already going against Sandra Bullock as a result of this film's ride on her tidal wave of love, I would imagine this being at the bottom of the pile.
Next up: Directors
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