2010 Oscar Winners

Best Picture - The Hurt Locker
Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor - Jeff Bridges
Best Actress - Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz
Best Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique
Best Original Score - Up
Best Cinematography - Avatar
Best Visual Effects - Avatar
Best Costume Design - The Young Victoria
Best Makeup - Star Trek
Best Animated Film - Up

2010 Oscar Nominations

This year there are ten Best Picture nominations rather than the traditional five. Avatar and The Hurt Locker lead the pack with nine noms each.

Best Picture
"Avatar"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"An Education"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglourious Basterds"
"Precious"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"
"Up in the Air"

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
George Clooney, "Up in the Air"
Colin Firth "A Single Man"
Morgan Freeman, "Invictus"
Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"
Helen Mirren, "The Last Station"
Carey Mulligan, "An Education"
Gabourey Sidibe, "Precious"
Meryl Streep, "Julie and Julia"

Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon, "Invictus"
Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger"
Christopher Plummer, "The Last Station"
Stanley Tucci, "The Lovely Bones"
Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds"

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, "Nine"
Vera Farmiga, "Up in the Air"
Maggie Gyllenhaal, "Crazy Heart"
Anna Kendrick, "Up in the Air"
Mo'Nique, "Precious"

Best Director
James Cameron, "Avatar"
Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds"
Lee Daniels, "Precious"
Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air"

Best Animated Feature
"Coraline"
"The Fantastic Mr. Fox"
"The Princess and the Frog"
"The Secret of Kells"
"Up"

Best Foreign Language Film
“Ajami," Israel
“El Secreto de Sus Ojos," Argentina
“The Milk of Sorrow," Peru
“Un Prophète," France
“The White Ribbon," Germany

Best Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker”
Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “A Serious Man”
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, “Up”

Best Adapted Screenplay
Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, “District 9”
Nick Hornby, “An Education”
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell,,“In the Loop”
Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious"
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”

Best Song
"Almost There" from "The Princess and the Frog"
"Down in New Orleans" from "The Princess and the Frog"
"Loin de Paname" from "Paris 36"
"Take It All" from "Nine"
"The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart"

Preshusssh: Mariah Carey (Hic) Winsh

So I Finally Saw Precious

I finally overcame my "white liberal guilt" and distaste for downer flicks this weekend and saw Precious, which garnered three Golden Globe nominations today, including Best Picture. I found it to be somewhat of a cinematic colonoscopy - uncomfortable and embarrassing - but also ultimately good for you. And like a colonoscopy, it was the kind of experience I hope to repeat as infrequently as possible for the rest of my life. It totally deserves any award it wins.

Oprah And Tyler Perry Disqualified For Precious Oscar Eligibility

Academy Award officials have ruled that Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who signed on as executive producers of Precious after the movie was completed, are not eligible to receive Oscars should the picture win. The pair's involvement has annoyed some movie industry insiders and well as some critics

Huge controversy surrounds the involvement of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." They signed on as executive producers after the film was shot, thus offering their celebrity status as support to help boost the profile of a movie with an important social message. Are they therefore entitled to win an Oscar statuette if "Precious" wins best picture? Official answer: no. "The rule is up to three producers get statuettes," a studio rep tells Gold Derby. "The producers are Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness."

The above-linked LA Times story points to this scathing review by black film critic Armond White. His final paragraph expresses why I'm uncomfortable with the film's seemingly exploitive tone, which is why I haven't seen it.

Worse than Precious itself was the ordeal of watching it with an audience full of patronizing white folk at the New York Film Festival, then enduring its media hoodwink as a credible depiction of black American life. A scene such as the hippopotamus-like teenager climbing a K-2 incline of tenement stairs to present her newborn, incest-bred baby to her unhinged virago matriarch, might have been met howls of skeptical laughter at Harlem’s Magic Johnson theater. Black audiences would surely have seen the comedy in this ludicrous, overloaded situation, whereas too many white film habitués casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority—and relief—it allows them to feel. Some people like being conned.

HomoQuotable - Lee Daniels

"Precious is really not a black story. I told it originally for a black audience, and I'm a black, gay filmmaker. So I told it with a gay sensibility, and I gave a black sensibility to it, because I'm African-American. But I think it's a universal story, and it goes beyond sex and/or culture to be universal.

"I met this lady who was 60 or 70 years old and attending the Sundance Film Festival, and the day after our first screening, she started sobbing in my arms. It was the most beautiful moment in all of this for me. I realized that it didn't matter if you were gay, black or from Philadelphia. This woman, who could barely speak my language, had embraced the moment and understood Precious." - Director Lee Daniels, whose film Precious shattered box office records for a limited release last weekend when it opened on 18 screens. The most Oscar-hyped film of the season, Precious opens nationwide on November 20th.

(I know I should see it, but it looks soooo depressing.)