It's Time for Oscar! 2009 Edition

(Note: The 2009 Academy Awards are awarded at the beginning of 2010, honouring films that were released in 2009. Just thought I’d clarify this…)

Hollywood’s ticking down to this weekend’s Academy Awards, and I don’t think the bomb squad from The Hurt Locker could diffuse the excitement. Things will surely explode at the Kodak Theater on Sunday night.

This year’s Oscars have been unpredictable from the start. Early last fall, festival accolades crowned Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire as the clear front-runner (several publications even said it was the Slumdog Millionaire of 2009).

Then, Up in the Air got remarkable buzz after its Best Picture win from the National Board of Review and a leading nomination tally at the Golden Globes.

But Precious and Up in the Air will have to make way for the tightest Oscar race in years. The front-runners are Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war flick (and critical smash) The Hurt Locker and James Cameron’s Pandora sci-fi extravaganza (and box office smash) Avatar.

And unless you were living on Pandora for the last month or so, you surely know that Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron used to be married.

Also, the Academy has doubled the Best Picture nominees (from 5 to 10) and the number of hosts (2, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin) this year.

So, here’s who I think will triumph at the 2009 Academy Awards:

Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress:

There’s virtually no contest in either of these categories. Christoph Waltz owns the Supporting Actor race as the hotsy-totsy Nazi from Inglourious Basterds. He’s owned the podium at every other award show so far, as has Mo’Nique, who portrayed the vile, abusive mother from Precious.

Both actors play villains, and with their wins, they will ensure that 5 of the last 6 winners of supporting performances at the Oscars will be for villainous roles (Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Heath Ledger being the others).

Best Actor:

It’s Jeff Bridges' year, folks. He’s already been nominated 4 times previously (first for The Last Picture Show, and most recently for 2000’s The Contender), proving he’s an Academy darling, and he also swept the awards circuit. This is a strong category, but the Academy will abide with The Dude.

Best Actress:

Sandra or Meryl? The first-time nominee or the 16-timer? Streep hasn’t won since Sophie’s Choice in 1983, but Julie and Julia got little support from the Academy (Best Actress is its sole nomination). Whereas The Blind Side has a Best Picture nomination, and Bullock’s performance has already proven to be victorious at other awards junctions.

Bet this one on Bullock, but don’t be blind sided by Streep, who may prove to be a shocker here.

Best Director:

Girls rule, boys drool. Well, not exactly, but count on Kathryn Bigelow to make Oscar history as the first woman to ever win the prestigious honour. Cameron, despite garnering a Best Director prize at the Golden Globes, has been absent from the podium everywhere else. Besides, he already won for Titanic and the Academy may feel tempted to spread the wealth.

Expect Bigelow to be crowned as Queen of the World.

Best Picture:

It’s down to two: Avatar and The Hurt Locker. All the other movies should just be happy to be there and enjoy the festivities.

Avatar is adored by audiences around the world and has become the biggest film of all time during its worldwide theatrical run so far (over $2.5 billion). Its technical achievements are revolutionary and people can’t stop talking about it.

Since viewership of the telecast has lagged in recent years due to the modest box-office takes of nominated films, the Academy may want to privilege a film that more viewers will be rooting for.

Then again, Avatar may be doomed for a few reasons:

1) It has no acting or screenplay nominations. The last time a movie won Best Picture without acting or writing nominations, it was for Grand Hotel - in 1933!

2) A science-fiction film has never won Best Picture. Other box-office behemoths in the genre, E.T. and Star Wars, won a handful of Oscars. But, they lost the top prize to Gandhi and Annie Hall, respectively.

3) This year’s complex voting process.

Instead of checking off one film on the ballot – as done in years prior – the Academy has the option of ranking the nominees from 1 (their top pick) to 10. In the first round, the Academy will put down which film each member puts as their #1 choice. Films with significantly lower takes will be disqualified, and the voters who selected those films will have their #2 pick counted. And so on.

The first film to get over 50% of the total will take home Best Picture. So, films that appear high on many lists (from #1 to #4, let's say) will have an upper hand on others.

So why does this spell trouble for Avatar? Unlike The Hurt Locker, Avatar has had a love-it-or-I'm-not-that-nuts-about-it response. Many think the film's fantastic, but its acclaim doesn’t reach everyone. Even some of its greater supporters feel that the story is derivative and that it’s not Best Picture material.

The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, has very little backlash, guaranteeing that it will get a lot of approval from Academy voters.

Still, some controversy has given The Hurt Locker a bit of a bumpy ride. Nicolas Chartier, one of the film’s producers, sent a letter to several Academy voters telling them not to vote for Avatar (he has since apologized and will not be present at the ceremony).

Also, some veterans have spoken out against the film, claiming that is an inauthentic portrayal of the US military.

But these controversies don’t necessarily spell disaster for The Hurt Locker. A Beautiful Mind received a similar backlash due to the anti-Semitism of the film’s subject, Nobel-Prize winner John Nash. It won Best Picture in 2002.

Also, complaints about Roman Polanski was thought to have hurt his Oscar chances when he was nominated for 2002’s The Pianist. He won, too.

And even with the film’s middling box office take (less than $20 million worldwide, compared to Avatar’s $2.5 billion), The Hurt Locker has owned this awards season. It won the top prize at the DGAs, the WGAs, the PGAs, and the American Cinema Editors awards – all ceremonies with voting bodies that spread over to the Academy. It also took home several prizes at the BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Oscars)

The Hollywood Foreign Press, who awarded Avatar the Best Picture Golden Globe, is entirely separate from the Academy.

Expect the Academy to award The Hurt Locker. Sorry, James.

Here's a full list of my Oscar predictions:

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, Precious

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Cinematography: Avatar

Best Visual Effects: Avatar

Best Film Editing: The Hurt Locker

Best Sound Mixing: Avatar

Best Sound Editing: Avatar

Best Makeup: The Young Victoria

Best Original Score: Up

Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Best Art Direction: Avatar

Best Original Song: Crazy Heart (“The Weary Kind”)

Best Documentary Feature: The Cove

Best Documentary Short: China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

Best Live Action Short: The Door

Best Animated Short: A Matter of Loaf and Death