The Peg Is In

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

State of the Oscar Run (updated 3/8/10): Saw all but 2 films. Which Way Home eluded me completely. Ajami I couldn’t find with English subtitles, and I don’t speak Hebrew. Squeezed in Un Prophete and El Secreto de Sus Ojos before the Oscars. All told, I saw 32 full-length films and 10 short films in 34 days.

We’re nearly there, folks. The 2009 Academy Awards will be given out tonight starting at 5:00 PM Pacific time. The world holds its breath: Will Peggy see the last two movies on her Oscar Run list?

Okay, no one cares about that. They really just want to know, after seeing all these movies, who I’d predict to win and who really deserves it. That’s why I watch all these movies, really – so you won’t have to. You’re welcome.

NOTE: This list is now updated with actual winners starred (*). I made 17 predictions, got 12 right, and 4 wrong. (I gave myself a half point each for Documentary and Costume Design as for each I was split between two films.)

Best Picture

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar

Check my reasoning here. Up in the Air was a close second. (Winner: The Hurt Locker*)

Best Director

My pick: James Cameron, Avatar
My prediction: James Cameron, Avatar

Check my reasoning here. Kathryn Bigelow* (The Hurt Locker) might be an upset win, in more ways than one – she’s Cameron’s ex-wife.

Best Actress

My pick: Helen Mirren, The Last Station
My prediction: Sandra Bullock*, The Blind Side

…which would be ironic, given All About Steve.

Best Supporting Actress

My pick: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
My prediction: Mo’Nique*, Precious

Very tempted to pick Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, but I think Anna squeaked past. And no, that pick was not Twilight-influenced.

Best Actor

My pick: Colin Firth, A Single Man
My prediction: Jeff Bridges*, Crazy Heart

Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) might pull off an upset win.

Best Supporting Actor

My pick: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
My prediction: Christoph Waltz*, Inglourious Basterds

I so wanted this to be Stanley Tucci, but no one wins with a movie like The Lovely Bones - including the audience.

Best Original Screenplay

My pick: The Hurt Locker
My prediction: The Hurt Locker*

I actually liked The Messenger better, but I think that was because of the performances, not the screenplay.

Best Adapted Screenplay

My pick: Up in the Air
My prediction: Up in the Air

(Winner: Precious*)

Best Foreign Language Film

My pick: El Secreto de Sus Ojos*
My prediction: Un Prophete

Ojos had the most incredible single-take tracking shot I’ve seen all year, and the best story. Prophete, however, had the distribution. Who knows? Last year, that didn’t matter to Oscar.

Best Art Direction

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

However, I really liked The Young Victoria for this, and thought Bright Star should also have been nominated in this category.

Best Costume Design

My pick: Bright Star
My prediction: Either Coco Before Chanel or The Young Victoria*

Clothes were more of a character in itself in Bright Star, even more so than in Coco Before Chanel, oddly enough.

Best Makeup

My pick: Star Trek
My prediction: Star Trek*

Three words: Zachary Quinto’s eyebrows. But bravo to Il Divo for the nomination.

Best Animated Feature

My pick: Up
My prediction: Up*

But damn, if The Princess and the Frog wasn’t a great return to classic animation for Disney!

Best Documentary Feature

My pick: The Cove*
My prediction: Food, Inc.

Actually, they tied for both pick and prediction in my mind.

Best Cinematography

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

The White Ribbon was deservedly nominated here, and was also the most painful movie to watch – that counts.

Best Original Song

My pick: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart
My prediction: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart*

But Marion Cotillard singing “Take It All” was the best part of the otherwise-awful Nine.

Best Visual Effects

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

Check my reasoning here.

Note that I am leaving off categories where I have no opinion: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing. I’m also skipping Best Original Score because that would take more independent listening than I have time for.

What are your picks and predictions?

Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish pine for each other in Bright Star

I’ve noticed I’m writing fewer reviews of individual movies this year, and by fewer, I mean “not a single one yet.” Sorry, movie fans. Here’s some (I hope) useful info that I can jot down quickly.

We’ve seen 26 of the 34 Oscar movies we intended to, so I can now recommend which you should see and which you should shun.

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State of the Oscar Run: 21 more movies to see in 14 days.

Podcast alert: If you prefer your movie talk in a visual format, go check out my husband Ken’s new video podcast That Movie Was…, where he and his friend James give their opinions on current movies.

Ken and I have reached a point in our Oscar Run where we’ve knocked out all movies in a few categories, so I can make some picks with confidence. These are not predictions, just who or what would get the Oscar if I were giving them out.

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Do you know where I could see these movies? They are Oscar-nominated, but eluding me. Help a movie-lover out!

• Ajami (from Israel)
• Burma VJ
• El Secreto De Sus Ojos (from Argentina)
• The Messenger
• The Milk of Sorrow (from Peru)
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
• The Secret of Kells
• Un Prophete (from France)
• Which Way Home

Current state of the Oscar Run: 28 more movies to see in 25 days.

As Ken and I have discovered over many years of trying to see Oscar-nominated movies, a nomination doesn’t guarantee that a movie will stay in theaters long enough for you to see it. It helps that there are more movies on DVD and available via cable On Demand services every year, but there are always those that fall in the cracks.

Here are the movies that we advise you see ASAP, as they may be nearing the end of their theater run, and they don’t have a DVD release date yet.

Fantastic Mr. Fox – Most theaters that are still showing this are doing so at “kid times” – just a few showings early in the day. That’s a sign that theater managers think it’s got a limited audience, which means it’s doomed. We’re going to try to see it today. Never miss a Wes Anderson flick!

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As I first explained a year ago, my husband and I try to see every film with an Oscar nomination or a nominee in it before the prizes are awarded. We call this the Oscar Run.

Today we got our marching orders – the 2009 Oscar nominees were announced. Go here for a complete list.

Here are all the movies with a nomination or nominee (excluding shorts and the more obscure technical nominees):

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I was walking to the cafeteria at work (Qualcomm Inc.) the other day, and noticed a display from the City of San Diego’s Recycling Program. A few representatives were giving out information and freebies, and I snagged the nifty bag above.

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So I’m watching Bored to Death on HBO, the new film noir/comedy series starring Jason Schwartzman. We had recorded several episodes on our DVR, and my husband was zipping through the in-between filler stuff to get to the next episode, when I yelled “STOP!!!”

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My husband does not share my love of Harry Potter. Dumbledore, Hogwarts and Quidditch leave him cold. But he loves me, and I love the books, so he made it his business to find out when the next Harry Potter film was coming out (July 15), and when it could be seen in the best of all possible formats, IMAX 3D (July 29).

Since it was opening day for this film in IMAX, we knew we’d have to wait in line to get decent seats, so we lined up at Edwards Mira Mesa Stadium 18 at 5:30 for the 7:40 PM show. We’d gone right after work, and given that we’d be in the movie until about 10PM, I bought concessions – a practice we call “conceding,” since we know the food is both terrible and overpriced. I got a hot dog, a medium popcorn, a medium soda, and some fruit gummies, which cost almost $20. IMAX movies cost more, in this case $16.50 each, so by the time we took our seats, we were already in for over $50.

Half a C note.

My friends, as much as I love Harry Potter, this gave me pause.

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This is my shoulder, and it has a story to tell.

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