Hell Freezes Over: Oscar Gets It Right?

That cold blast you're feeling right now may or may not be from the nastiest winter since Dennis Quaid strapped his skis on in The Day After Tomorrow. No, my friends, the chill from the west is coming from the fact that Hell may have frozen over; after looking down the list of this year's Oscar nominees, I did not disagree with a single one of them. Is it possible that the age of miracles has come, and that the days of awful Oscar winners from Cavalcade to Crash are now behind us? Another thought as the year wraps up: that 2010, which felt like the most depressingly 3-D/fart joke/prequel sequel/ooh it's from a comic book year as it was unfolding, may in retrospect turn out to have been one of the strongest years for American film in recent memory. I had at least some admiration and respect for all 10 of the Best Picture nominees; and how thrilled are my fellow auteurists and I that the Best Director roster includes Fincher, Aronofsky and David O. Russell (if not Christopher Nolan, which is my only major gripe). All of this, and Jean Luc "You Can't Spell Godard without 'G-d'" receiving the you'll be dead soon award? Sacre merde! It should be an interesting night.

Best Picture

I reiterate my statement from last year that the return to the tradition of 10 BP nominees instead of 5 is a most welcome one. From this list, there are some fairly easy eliminations. Toy Story 3 will win Best Animated, although in some respects it might have been the year's best overall (certainly in terms of volume of tears produced). Not enough people saw 127 Days and a Boyle film recently won, so it will not make the cut (I've been waiting to make that joke since it was nominated). The Fighter was wicked cliched, with some of the most boring fight scenes ever seen in a major motion picture. Kids was lovely and unusual, but perhaps a bit too granola chic. That brings us to Black Swan, Aronofsky's unholy wedding of Repulsion and The Red Shoes, which was probably my favorite film of the year; a bit too dark and intense for the majority of voters, I would guess. All in all, the best picture I saw last year was Winter's Bone, which was a miraculous combination of an incredibly vivid sense of a particular time and place mixed with a tale as ancient and universal as any tribal legend. Too small to win, but look out for all the talent involved. My guess is that in honor of its 30th anniversary, we will see a repeat of the Chariots of Fire syndrome. As in that case, a small, finely crafted film about Englishmen overcoming obstacles to achieve great triumph will upset a favored film about revolution (in 1981, it was the Bolshevik kind; in 2011, the digital kind). So King's Speech over Social Network in a squeaker.

Best Actor

Easiest pick on the board. The Dude and Bardem have won recently. Jesse Eisenberg was a welcome surprise, although he was forced into playing one note for a long, long movie. James Franco strikes me as the kind of actor who will pick up a couple of these awards along the way, an amazing combination of intelligence and old-school charisma. But this is not his time, and the award belongs to Colin Firth, who indeed deserves it and will most likely not stutter during his acceptance speech.

Best Actress

Another no-brainer. After all, anyone who could almost make the line "Why can't things be like they were back on Naboo?" seem believable surely deserves some kind of credit. In all seriousness, however, Black Swan was the moment where Natalie Portman finally fulfilled the potential we had seen small hints of (utterly charming in Garden State, powerful in V for Vendetta). The film's success or failure rested on her shoulders and she knocked it out of the park. Her only competition should be the brilliance of Jennifer Lawrence as an Antigone of the crystal meth Ozarks in Winter's Bone.

Best Supporting Actor

It's very tempting to hand this one to Geoffrey Rush for doing the one thing they said he could never do: underplay. He is marvelous as the failed actor turned speech therapist to the crown, but he's won already and I think voters will want to spread the wealth. Sorry to beat this drum again, but it would be more than just if John Hawkes were to win for underplaying to a very different effect in Winter's Bone. His Uncle Teardrop was one of the most chilling, terrifying characters put on film in recent memory, and all of it done with no visible technique at all (or even a funny haircut like Javier Bardem in No Country). This is not going to be the year of the underplayer in this category, however; the winner in a runaway will be Christian Bale's showy, dripping-with-technique yet never less than riveting performance as Dickie in The Fighter. I don't think it's his best, but I've never seen him give an uninteresting performance, in good films and wretched, going all the way back to his debut in Empire of the Sun nearly a quarter century ago.

Best Supporting Actress

Toughest call of the big ones. If you are one of my fellow fanatics who believes that Homicide: Life on the Street was the best show ever to grace network television, perhaps the biggest reason to celebrate this year's picks was the nomination of Melissa Leo in this category. She did win the Globes, and if she wins here, I'm the first to head down to Fells Point to celebrate. However, it is fair to say that she was matched scene for scene in The Fighter by a wonderfully cast-against-type Amy Adams; it is possible that these two performances will cancel each other out. The other good news in this category is that HBC finally came to her senses by getting the hell away from playing google-eyed loons for her husband. She is marvelous in King's Speech: regal, warm and always with a twinkling sense of humor underneath. In the end, however, I think that the Academy will give in to Anna Paquin Syndrome and give the award to Hailee Steinfeldt. She was indeed wonderful in True Grit, and should win it just for that one scene where she barters with the cotton broker. Hers was yet another stunning, out-of-nowhere performance by an actress this year, utterly convincing from start to finish.

Director

Here's a little quiz. What director has had the best three-consecutive-film streak since, say, 1990? Aronofsky? Fountain. (Lovely, but misguided). Tarantino? Maybe, especially if you love Jackie Brown as much as I do, but not everyone does. PT? Three words: punch drunk love. Actually, I think you could easily make the case for David Fincher for Se7en, The Game and the epochal Fight Club. Yes, Panic Room sucked, Zodiac was two so-so films for the price of one good one, and I actually prayed that time would run backwards so that I could have the three hours back that I spent watching Benjamin Button. All that said, I'm not unhappy that Fincher will win for a film that any average director could have made (especially with Aaron Sorkin on board); think of it as a Lifetime Achievement Award, and you'll sleep more easily. Of course I'll be rooting for Arnofsky's return to form in Black Swan, and hoping that The Fighter marks David O. Russell's path away from Huckabees and back in the general direction of the brilliance of Three Kings.

And So On...

Lots of tech awards for the brilliant Inception, if nothing else. Screenplay awards to King's Speech and The Social Network. Godard's silence in not showing up will be as profound as anything anyone actually says. And for goodness' sake, if they're not ready for Aronofsky to win, please let them recognize his cinematographer Matthew Libatique for his endlessly innovative and breathtaking work. As a final note, I would recommend Mark Harris' wonderful article in GQ about the potential impending death of American film. (The Day the Movies Died). Here's hoping that he's wrong, although as you look around at what's opening this coming year, early results aren't promising. If 2010 was any indication, however, there is great hope that the spinning top will indeed fall and that it won't be another bad dream.