Oscars 2010

[superhero]

Probably time to start a thread for all oscar talk coming up. Up in the Air has won the first major Best Film award for the National Board of Review and George Clooney has shared Best Actor award with Morgan Freeman for Invictus.
I saw a news article of Sky a few weeks ago about possible Oscar contenders and they mentioned Up in the Air, Invictus and Nine. I can't disagree, especially with Up in the Air and Invictus. Clint Eastwood has such a good strike rate with Oscar nominations, but so far Up in the Air is definitely my favourite film for the best picture award.
I am assuming we are going to run an oscar guessing competition like last year...I was too late to enter last year, but I wouldn't have won anyway, having supported Mickey Rourke over Sean Penn (having not seen Milk until a few months ago)

[Beate]

Yes, we should definitely have an Oscar guessing comp again once all the nominations are out!

[superhero]

Yes and now we have more time to decide on a prize!

[ciro22]

How about we do an Oscar nominations comp now and then a winners comp once the actual noms are announced?!

I can always explain what films would be eligible for nomination if it helps...

[superhero]

That would be nice too. It's even more tricky now to predict without the nominations but would be fun, at least we can do it for the main categories.

[lovesitx]

I heard that The Lovely Bones is a possible contender after its London screening.

[ciro22]

Well now that the Best Film category has been expanded to 10 films, The Lovely Bones might well get a space on the shortlist. However it has been getting very mixed reviews so far and so I think its box office success will go a long way to determining how much of a shot it has.

The one film that's screaming Oscar so far has got to be "Invictus" -

A film about Nelson Mandela... Beating Apartheid and bringing people of different races together... played by Morgan Freeman... with support from Matt Damon... and directed by Clint Eastwood

All the other films should probably just go on back home now...

[nintendo]

Apparently 'The Road', an apocalyptic film starring Viggo Mortensen, is a strong contender for Best Film, it's release has been kept back to January to give it a better chance of winning, and quite a few reviews from the US have suggested it is v.good.

[ciro22]

I'd love for The Road to be a contender, but just like Invictus has material that appears to be specifically designed to appeal to the Oscar voters, I think that The Road might miss well miss out due its uncommercial nature and its downbeat ending...

The one thing that it has got going for it that might have some pull with the voters is that it's based on a well known and well respected book by Cormac McCarthy and there should be some recognition from the voters following the Oscar success of No Country...

[andrews]

Good article here about the Oscars:

http://www.timeout.com/film/features/sh ... -here.html

Amongst those films already in the running for Best Picture are:

Precious
Nine
Up in The Air
Invictus
The Hurt Locker