Home Picture Director Lead Supporting Screenplay Animated/Documentary/Foreign Song/Score Technical-I Technical-II Shorts
| The Hurt Locker | Inglourious Basterds | A Serious Man | Up | The Messenger |
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| Three members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad battle insurgents and one another as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad—in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. |
In German-occupied France,Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as “The Basterds"...Mission:take down the leaders of The Third Reich. |
A black comedy set in 1967 and centered on on Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother won't move out of the house | By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn't alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip. | In his most powerful performance to date, Ben Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Samantha Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband's death, Will's emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival. |
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Analysis: I'd love to see Tarantino hold the Oscar for his fantastic script for Inglourious Basterds, but The Hurt Locker could very well win this award. To me, this is the hardest of the big awards to decide on. Usually, we have the Writers Guild Awards to lean on for an idea as to who is out in front. However, Inglourious Basterds was not eligible for the WGA due to Tarantino not being part of the Guild. So The Hurt Locker took the WGA without its biggest competition in the running. Flip a coin between these two, it's that close of a race! In the end, I have decided to go with the momentum Mark Boal has received with the WGA and BAFTA win over the star power of Quentin Tarantino. Also, if The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture, Editing and Director, it seems like Screenplay should be in there too, right? Will Win - Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker Should Win - Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds Could Win - Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds |
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| Up in the Air | Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire | An Education | District 9 | In the Loop |
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| George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams. | In Harlem, an overweight, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction. | A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age. |
District 9 is based on Alive in Joburg, a short film directed by Neill Blomkamp, Sharlto Copley, Simon Hansen and Shanon Worley. Copley also portrayed one of the interviewed policemen. The short film is about aliens landing in South Africa and becoming confined to a specific area and forced to work. |
Britain and America; friends and allies as far back as anyone can remember. Both the US President and UK Prime Minister fancy a war but not everyone agrees including US Assistant Secretary for Diplomacy, US Army General (James Gandolfini) and a floundering British Minister Simon Foster (Tom Hollander). When Foster accidentally announces on national TV that ‘war is unforeseeable,’ the British government is sent into a spiral of chaos and spin propagated by verbosely aggressive Director of Communications, Malcom Tucker (Peter Capaldi). Foster attempts to neutralise his ‘unforeseeable’ comment by telling the British public to prepare to ‘climb the mountain of conflict’ but soon finds himself bundled off to Washington on a fact-finder where he becomes both a pawn for the secret war committee and a poster-boy for the General and the Assistant Secretary for Diplomacy’s anti-war campaign |
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Analysis: It is ironic that one of the years front runners for Best Picture will win only one Oscar. Yeah, I said it! Up in the Air is the favorite here, and well deserved. I just don't see it winning anything else. I think this will be the one place to recognize one of the better films of the year. Will Win - Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air Should Win - Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air Could Win - Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire |
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Home Picture Director Lead Supporting Screenplay Animated/Documentary/Foreign Song/Score Technical-I Technical-II Shorts