So you've got all the important interesting easiest categories on your ballot filled out. But now what? In a race as stultifyingly sewn-up as this one, how do you actually win the pot of money that annoying receptionist who dots her i's with hearts and loves Nickelback is keeping hostage in her desk?
With crap like Sound Editing, that's how. Getting the smaller, technical categories on lock is like a sneak attack, like guerilla warfare, like...I don't know what it's like. The point is: IT MAKES YOU WIN.
So jump the jump and let's win you some cash.
This may seem lazy or plagiaristic, but whatever. Do you want to win, or do you want me to make informed, well intellectualized prognostications that will probably be wrong? That's what I thought. Given the former, in below-the-line categories that aren't a lock for Avatar or where I have no idea what to vote for, we're going to be deferring to good ol' Entertainment Weekly's predictions, which I've found in recent years to be very, very accurate--and which led me to win the last office Oscar pool I entered.
Without further ado:
Best Animated Feature
UP--If you vote for anything other than Up, not only do you not deserve to win, but you should report immediately to the nearest hospital. Your stupidity is such that your brain is likely to become overtaxed any moment with the simple process of respiration.
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a hotly contested category, with France's A Prophet and Austria's The White Ribbon getting the most buzz, but Argentina's El Secreto de Sus Ojos favored for an upset. EW's going with El Secreto de Sus Ojos, and that's good enough for me.
Best Documentary Feature
Most people seem to think Food, Inc. is a lock here. They're wrong. It's totes gonna be The Cove, because dolphins!
Best Editing
Yet another category that will be a war v. blue aliens deathmatch. But so much of what is so great about The Hurt Locker owes to its expert editing. Expect it to grab this one out from under Dances with Fern Gully.
Best Art Direction
This one's a tough call, too. Sherlock Holmes's real-world tangibles, or Avatar's megapixels? But then you have to factor in that lots of people are dumb and don't see the distinction between the two, Avatar is filled with pretty pretty pictures, and Sherlock Holmes wasn't very good. Avatar it will be.
Best Cinematography
Yet another Avatar/The Hurt Locker matchup--unless Inglourious Basterds seeks in while no one's looking. But it's pretty difficult to deny that cinematography is about cameras--actual real cameras photographing actual objects and persons--and not Macs. So, by an nose, The Hurt Locker's gritty angles and compositions it will be.
Best Original Score
E-Dubs says Up. Fine with me, since second place is Avatar and that shit was schlocky like WHUT.
Best Original Song
Duh. This is a lock. T Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham's "The Weary Kind"--a terrific song you should download post haste--from Crazy Heart will win this handily, both because it's wonderful and because Randy Newman's two nominated songs from Disney's Frog Movie or whatever it's called with split the vote.
Best Costume Design
EW says The Young Victoria. Elsewhere, I've heard Coco Before Chanel. I have no idea what to say, but my instincts tell me period dress always trumps all. So I'm voting Young Vicky.
Best Makeup
This category's a frequent sci-fi/fantasy stronghold, so Star Trek is the most logical choice.
Best Visual Effects
Seriously? Avatar. Next.
Best Sound Editing
Ibid.
Best Sound Mixing
Yawn. The Hurt Locker has a shot, but Avatar's more likely.
Best Live Action Short
Something called The New Tenants. Who knows.
Best Animated Short
A Matter of Loaf and Death. Wallace and Gromit! Yay!
Best Documentary Short
You have two choices, according to sources. The Last Truck, a topical bit about the closing of an Ohio GM plant, or Music by Prudence about singing and Zimbabwe or whatever I'm so fucking over this. Just vote for Music by Prudence I'm hungry and tired and need a shower.
So there you have it! Now all we have left to do is watch on Sunday! Check back here beginning Sunday 5:00ish for all kinds of tomfoolery, pointing and laughing, and hurling of profanity when Avatar wins too many things!
It's the most wonderful time of the year...
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