With the Oscars just a month away who do you think is going to scoop the most awards?
If you’ve not treated yourself to Avatar yet, it is one of the biggest, brightest and best offerings of the year and bound to set your imagination on fire, particularly if you manage to snag a seat at the IMAX to see it in all it’s 3D glory.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two months you’ll know that Avatar, James Cameron’s latest masterpiece, is a story about a Marine who infiltrates an alien culture in order to help destroy them and in the process falls in love, oh yeah, and it’s mostly blue.
It’s sort of awkward and tacky in my opinion and the plot is as two-dimensional as the graphics are three-dimensional, still, the effects are so extraordinary it’s definitely worth seeing.
It’s up against “The Blind Side” “District 9” “An Education” “The Hurt Locker” “Inglorious Basterds” “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” “A Serious Man” “Up” and “Up in the Air”.
The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow has also been nominated for nine Oscars pitting her against her ex-husband James Cameron for the top spot of best director and best picture.
Certainly the drama of their relationship to each other has got tongues wagging, but what about the difference in style and tone of the films themselves?
The Hurt Locker is about as gritty a take on the Iraq War as could be made and certainly blew this reviewer away, if you’ll pardon the pun. The story revolves around a bomb-disposal expert who deals with IEDs on a daily basis in Iraq and is not only brilliantly suspenseful, but also beautifully shot and edited.
Pitted against Cameron’s fantasy vision of ‘Pandora’ it’s not easy to tell which the voters will go for, either soft fluffy fiction or hard realistic drama, but “District 9” strikes a convincing balance between the two.
It is a stylish and slickly made ‘documentary’ film about an alien invasion in South Africa and follows one man’s story through the ghettos and labs as he slowly begins to turn into a giant “Prawn”.
With obvious subtexts on apartheid and race relations in the country, the mixture of high budget special effects and ‘low budget’ production values, the film not only has something to say that is worthy and relevant, but does so in a way which is not so obvious as Cameron’s spoon-feeding approach, nor so direct and uncomfortable as Bigelow’s.
“An Education” is also up for best picture, which may come as a surprise to many as it’s not exactly usual fare, but the acting, script and drama of the movie all combine to make it really special, again, another one worth seeing, if only for the beautiful performance by Carey Mulligan who's been nominated for Best Actress. (I hope she wins, as she is really very good).
Then there's "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire" which really is a very moving story about a girl who is raped from her childhood upwards by her father, and gives birth to two of his kids, one of whom has downsyndrome.
It is an extraordinary piece of cinema, and is about as different from "An Education" as one could imagine, yet strangely in the same vein, dealing with education and adulthood.
Then there's "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire" which really is a very moving story about a girl who is raped from her childhood upwards by her father, and gives birth to two of his kids, one of whom has downsyndrome.
It is an extraordinary piece of cinema, and is about as different from "An Education" as one could imagine, yet strangely in the same vein, dealing with education and adulthood.
Actor in a leading role –
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
George Clooney – Up in the Air
Colin Firth – A single man
Morgan Freeman – Invictus
Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Actor in a supporting role –
Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harelson – The Messenger
Chistopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tuccci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basteds
Actress in a leading Role –
Sandra Bullock – The Blind side
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Gabourney Sibide – Precious
Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia
Actress in a supporting role –
Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhall - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
Mo’Nique - Precious
Animated Feature Film –
Coraline – Henry Selick
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson
The Princess and the frog – John Muskar and Ron Clements
The Secret of Kelis – Tomm Moore
Up – Pete Docter
Art Direction –
Avatar – Rick Carter –
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassuss –
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria
Cinematography –
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Ingloriuos Basterds
The White Ribbon
Costume Design –
Bright Star
Coco before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassuss –
Nine
The young Victoria
Directing –
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
Up in the Air
Film Editing –
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
Music –
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The hurt Locker
Up
No comments:
Post a Comment