And The Oscar Goes To ...

I had plenty of time to kill the past few weeks hence I assigned myself a little personal 'project'.

It's the awards season in Hollywood, so after watching The Golden Globes recently I thought of watching all 10 movies nominated for Best Film and perhaps some other Oscar-worthy noms.

pic : reelmovienews.com

And yesterday I completed the 'assignment' ahead of schedule. Movies like Inception, Toy Story 3, 127 Hours I've watched earlier so these are the ones in the past two weeks. The Oscar nominees for Best Film are :

127 Hours : Director - Danny Boyle

Toy Story 3 : Director - Lee Unkrich

Inception : Director - Chris Nolan

The Social Network : Director - David Fincher

The King's Speech : Director - Tom Hooper

The Black Swan : Director Darren Aronofsky

True Grit : Directors - Ethan and Joel Coen

The Kids Are All Right : Director - Lisa Cholodenko

Winter's Bone : Director - Debra Granik

The Fighter : Director - David O. Russell

In the above category, the film I enjoyed the most for its entertainment value : INCEPTION. (But they snubbed Chris Nolan in the Best Director category, wth?); film that I was pleasantly surprised with : TRUE GRIT, from the Coen brothers. THE BLACK SWAN was very good, more intense than I expected. I am biased with 127 HOURS because of James Franco so no need to ask me :-)

I think the frontrunners are : The King's Speech, The Black Swan, True Grit. I'd love for Inception to rock the boat and win this category - and, who knows, maybe The Social Network will win again? The 'weaker' ones are The Fighter, Toy Story 3 and The Kids Are All Right. The Social Network won The Golden Globes for this category, and history shows that they never give the Oscar to the same film. We'll see.

Best Director : I'd give it to either Darren Aronofsky or the Coen brothers. (David Fincher won the Globe and Tom Hooper won the DGA earlier.)

Best Actor - I pick either Jeff Bridges (True Grit) or Colin Firth (The King's Speech). Pity I have not watched Javier Bardem's Biutiful, he's a fine actor too. Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco gave fine performances too, but realistically they are long shots. Sorry JF love, your time will come.

Best Actress - Natalie Portman (The Black Swan) Loved her since The Professional!

Best Supporting Actor - first choice, Christian Bale (he's just nuts in The Fighter), second Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech).

Best Supporting Actress - I really like 14 year old Hailee Steinfield's breakout performance in True Grit. Some may say she's too young for the award, but remember, Anna Paquin was only 11 when she won for that superb acting in The Piano. I don't know why Melissa Leo got it twice now, the Globe and the SAG.

We'll just have to wait till 27th February for the results!

p.s. I watched The Town too, which starred and is directed by Ben Affleck. A very good movie, I enjoyed it.