Costal's Oscar Picks Pre-Show Rant

On this, gilded Oscar Eve, I reflect on the past month of nominee-wathcing and think: Man, February is really the worst month of the year, I mean, is that even disputable?

Another Oscar season almost in the books, and we at the FI will stave off that dreaded day-after-Oscars disappointment with a class period full of reminisces, laughs, gossip, Clancey yammering on about Sandra Bullock and the telecast highs/lows (read: if you don't hand in your critiques I am gonna "blind side" your "blind side"). Before we bid this year's celebration of current American cinema a twangy sayonara...here are my final thoughts and special picks.

Costal's Final Best Picture List:

1. Inglorious Basterds

2. An Education

3. The Hurt Locker

4. Up in the Air

5. District 9

6. Precious

7. Up
8. A Serious Man

9. Avatar
10. The Blind Side

NOW!!!!

I have said plenty about Jeremy Renner (Best Actor who won't win).

I have said plenty about how much I hated The Blind Side and Avatar. So much so that I think the Academy should edit the films together into The Blind Avatar during the inevitable Oscar night montage.

Best Picture/Director/Cinematogrpahy/Original Screenplay who won't win: I was a senior in high school in 1994 when Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction at every major award show. Back then, I agreed. Barely. I agreed, but looking back...I was so wrong.

Pulp has been so much more influential to cinema than Forrest. It resurrected more than Travolta...it resurrected cool. It gave us gangsta swagga with cultural importance. It innovated the screen strucutrally and spatially while daring an up-tight 90s audience to love violence again. It wagged its tongue at seediness. It paved a road for everything from smart alec, gross-out comedies that rake in millions today, to thought-provoking, plot-twisty capers a la Guy Ritchie.

Forrest was an amazing movie...visually innovative with stunning character development and poetic relevance...but it didn't change the game like Pulp did. Say "Life IS like a box of choc-ah-lates" today and people roll their eyes. Say "Le Big Mac" and a generation feels like it came home for spring break 

Tarantino brings us forward by forcing us to look back, and Inglorious brings him back to form. It is a nearly perfect satire: witty, incomparable, insufferably self-important and over the top. It also has amazing performances and inspiring shot sequences. Most importantly, it provides a killer fx of that old Tarantino dialogue magic. At the Globes, a huge head called Cameron said, "the future of movies is Avatar."

I hope its Inglorious Basterds.

Hosed: Brad Pitt. The man doesn't make bad movies. Period. And don't come at me with The Mexican, one day I'll post a rant called "25 Reasons Why The Mexican isn't as bad as posers pretend it is." But, for now, trust me.

Pitt has proved a greater chameleon than most Hollywood leading men. I never stoppped seeing George Clooney in Up in the Air, but Brad still disappears. He followed up his hilarious, movie-stealing performance in Burn After Reading with an even sillier, more devastatingly funny character performance in Inglorious. 

Best Adapted Screenplay/Best Actress: But Inglorious barely edged the most touching, refreshing and thought-provoking film of the year: An Education. Next to Carey Mulligan, Sandra Bullock is Keanu Reeves. She's community theatre.

Mulligan is an elegant, affecting heroine, who carryed a bitter sweet movie...as a rookie. She's Mark Sanchez with a bob.

The film peels back the layers of "growing up" better than any film since Good Will Hunting. And I didn't have to watch Ben Affleck in track pants.

An Education teaches us that what we want and when we want it are always two different things. Yet, for most of us, they are inseperable qualifiers. The movie is about the balance between romance and realism, and it sticks long after the final frame. I will follow the trend and call Mulligan our generation's Audrey Hepburn, once I see a follow-up performance.

An Education only falls short through some inexplicable moments. For instance, the end is rushed and too tidy.

Otherwise, Nick Hornby is the man! I am such a fan of his writing, and it translated to the screen seemlessly. His philosophies, his criticisms of culture, his genius: all rolled into Mulligan's knowing smirk and innocent expressions. Hornby has such a distinct style. It poked through shyly in adaptations of his novels (well in About a Boy, less so in High Fidelity), but it shines gloriously in his first screen adaptation of another writer's book. He weaves allusions and awkward nuances into portraits of the human condition that are often so life-like, we look away.  

Hosed: Peter Saarsgaard and Alfred Molina NOT being nominated is an injustice. The former's socio-path leaves the audience breathelessly conflicted until his final, self-destructive frame. The latter precisely captures the crux of the working middle class parents: awkward in their insecurity about raising children more priviledged and smarter than they. When he consoles his daughter during the film's denouement, your heart will melt. 

Enjoy the Oscar Prediction Post, due out tomorrow. Then, enjoy the show itself. Enjoy the glitz and glam. Watch ABC scramble for young viewers. Get ready to talk about it all on Monday.