hugh jackman ftw

With February comes Oscar season, and with Oscar season comes oodles and oodles of analyses (is that the correct plural term? I think it is =P). It's kind of annoying, but to hell with it, I'm going to do it myself anyway! I should also mention that whenever I think of the Oscars, I go and watch this video of Hugh Jackman (my favourite part is about The Reader. It never gets old). That, and how the rap group Three Six Mafia actually won an Oscar. How awesome is that?!

But, yarr, the Oscars. So much fun. I hope Anne Hathaway and James Franco do a good job this year; Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, while that sounded good on paper, just looked really awkward. Granted, they do have a ridiculously awesome sense of comedic timing, so I mean, maybe that was the point? If so, it was clearly lost on me...I can appreciate people like Jon Stewart, or Chris Rock, and maaaaaybe even occasionally Ellen DeGeneres (even if she's a bit annoying sometimes)...or maybe I just like the solo acts better than the duo. Who knows? Hugh Jackman was pretty sweet, though, you have to admit.

There are a lot of sweet movies up for Oscars this year, yet one of my favourite things to look at are not the people who were nominated, but the people who were not nominated. Like in 2008, Christopher Nolan was once again snubbed, leading fanboys (of both The Dark Knight and Inception) to cry foul. Inception was nominated, though, for Best Picture, so that's kind of like the Academy saying 'alright, stop whining, here's your goddamn nomination'. It's very unlikely that Inception will win anything other than technical achievement awards (it was also nominated for Art Direction, Cinematography, Music (Original Score), Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Writing (Original Screenplay), all nominations it could potentially win), but garnering a Best Picture nomination (even in the renewed age of the new expanded BP nominees) is still pretty impressive.

Again, though, the nominees are pretty sweet. I was lucky enough to have seen True Grit, The Fighter and a host of other Oscar-nominated movies, and all of them are fantastic. One race that always intrigues me is the Best Animated Picture. It's no secret that Pixar is often lightyears (c wut i did thar? Pixar? Lightyear? BUZZ LIGHTYEAR? i r teh funnay) ahead of the competition; since 2001 (the 74th Academy Awards; this year we have the 83rd) Pixar has won the award five times. In the years it didn't win, there was either a much better movie (such as Shrek over Monsters Inc. in 2001, or Happy Feet over Cars in 2006), or Pixar simply hadn't made a movie that year. Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E, Ratatouille and Up all won awards for being fantastic movies, and indeed, if Toy Story 3 does not win the Oscar this year...well, I'll be one sad dude. Granted, its competition is one of the best non-Disney/Pixar movies to come out in years, How To Train Your Dragon, but still, it's no Toy Story 3. Hell, if TS3 can garner a Best PICTURE nomination, it can at the very least win a Best Animated Picture award.

The Fighter is a fantastic movie, and Christian Bale really went all out for this role. He lost something like 30+ lbs to prepare for his turn as a crack-addicted former boxer, while his younger bro is going for the chance to win something he never could: a world title. It's based on a true story, but Bale really shined in this one...I hope (and fully expect) him to win. Best Actor and Best Actress I'm going with Colin Firth and Natalie Portman, respectively, as they won the SAG awards for those categories as well, and those are usually pretty good indicators of who will win the Oscar. Jeff Bridges was great in True Grit, but I feel as if because A) he won last year and B) Colin Firth was great in The King's Speech, they'll not be giving it to him, as impressive as that would be.

The Best Picture and Best Director awards are always tricky to predict, because there are always so many fantastic movies that come out each year. Last year it was down to Avatar and The Hurt Locker, and the latter won out in both categories. I have no idea who will win this year, so I'll just say who I want to win: Best Director - Darren Aronofsky and Best Picture - The King's Speech. woo for baseless predictions, considering I haven't seen either The Black Swan or The King's Speech! =P

In the category of technical achievements, Visual Effects is always a fun one. I hope either Inception or Iron Man 2 wins...two of my favourite movies. At this point in the picking of winners, I'm just going with my personal preference, really. While I want Toy Story 3 to win for Best Adapted Screenplay, I feel as if the Social Network will win, considering Aaron Sorkin (who was a creator as well as writer for The West Wing, one of the best television shows period) was the guy behind it.

But I digress. In the end, the Oscars are literally a bunch of actors, directors, writers, etc. giving other actors, directors, writers, etc. golden statues to worship at home and the right to say 'hah, my movie made x millions of dollars more than yours!/hah, I'm a better actor/actress than you!/etc.' for a year. You're always hearing about how our society is a destructive one because everyone is a gluttonous (lolololol) consumer, in the age of celebrities, Facebook and Twitter, and yet millions of people (including myself) will tune into the Oscars to watch these celebrities pat each other on the back. The day after the Oscars, February 28th, I'll be going downtown, to the VUSAC office, preparing to pick up a package for my college spring elections...the world will still (hopefully) be the same. What I'm basically trying to say (in a quasi intelligent way) is that my predictions don't really matter, so why are you still reading? Go do something productive!