Somnopolis

Actor in a Leading Role – Jeff Bridges

Actor in a Supporting Role – Christopher Plummer/ Christoph Waltz(It’s the Battle of the Christophers!)

Actress in a Leading Role – Sandra Bullock

Actress in a Supporting Role – Mo’Nique (in the bag – see Robert Downey’s speech from Tropic Thunder)

Animated Feature Film – Up

Art Direction/ Cinematography/ Sound Editing/ Sound Mixing/ Visual Effects – Avatar (sfx extravaganzas sweep the techies)

Costume Design – Coco Before Chanel (It’s Chanel!!)

Directing – Kathryn Bigelow (Cameron’s too much of an ego, Reitman’s too callow, Tarantino’s too much….no one knows who Lee Daniels was and we don’t wanna go give a social realist director a big head. That’s not what the Oscars are about)

Documentary (Feature) – The Cove (those poor widdle dolphins! Plus it replaces the need for liberal America to actually *do* something about Japanese animal cruelty that could lead to an international incident)

Film Editing – Inglourious Basterds

  Foreign Language Film - “The White Ribbon” – Germany (Hollywood pretends it ‘gets’ Haneke)

Makeup - “Star Trek” (see Avatar and ‘techie’, principle)

Music (Original Score)  “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (Which I want to win – but it won’t)

Music (Original Song) - “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best Picture  “The Hurt Locker”/“Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers (too close for me to call)

Short Film (Animated)  “A Matter of Loaf and Death” Nick Park (darker than previous entries, but still excellent)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)  “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche (Iannucci is the voicepiece for Liberal British guilt vis a vis the war atm)

Writing (Original Screenplay) - “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal (it comes as a shock to everyone that films are ‘written’!)

Throwing aside everything I’ve said…the Oscars are not about merit, or what are the ‘best’ films. They’re about promoting cinema. No film this year has done more to promote the idea of visiting the cinema than Avatar. It’ll make a killing, there can be no doubt.

Marissa Tomei won an Oscar. ‘cough’.