MADness—the Blog

Bonnie and Clyde, by making us care about the robber lovers, has put the sting back into death.

—Pauline Kael, 1967

Director Arthur Penn died last night in New York at the age of 88.  Penn first directed television during the small screen’s golden age in the 1950s.  He transitioned to movies with The Left Handed Gun, with Paul Newman, in 1958, and The Miracle Worker, in 1962, which he had directed earlier for TV and the stage.  He’s best known for his 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde, a landmark picture that in subject matter and technique was highly influential on movies that followed.  His work during the 1970s included Little Big Man, Night Moves, and The Missouri Breaks.

You can read Dave Kehr’s obit in the New York Times here, and hear an NPR interview with Penn from 2008 here.

I sat next to a couple, both probably in their young twenties.  Apparently he’d seen the film before, and she had not.  Early on I heard him say, “See that?  They just cut from a dream to reality.”  A minute or two later he was nearly out of seat, pointing to the screen.  “No, that’s reality.  The other one was a dream too.”  He slumped back in his seat.  “It’s so confusing.”

He was right about the last part.  It would take repeated viewings, probably more than two, to sort out the levels of dreams in Christopher Nolan’s Inception.  Nolan has a talent for visuals, a thirst for action, and a taste for puzzles, but he seems to lack the knack for putting together a story in a coherent narrative.  It may be the Nolan has it all worked out, the thousand pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit without a single hole in the picture, and after watching the whole thing twenty-four times, anyone can see it.  Though I doubt it.  After one time through, I’m left with a bunch of fragments and I’m not sure why I should care to watch again to find out if the fragments fit or not.  I don’t mind storytellers playing with structure—I’m a puzzle guy who likes that kind of stuff—but I like character too, and I need to feel some emotional resonance with who’s in the story especially if you’re asking me to do mental gymnastics to make sense of the narrative.

Inception appears to be a big hit with critics and at the box office.  It will probably be the summer’s biggest hit not a sequel.  I may be in the minority, and despite some brilliant effects and other imaginative touches, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.

Movies are dreamlike, dreams don’t always make sense, and I’ve seen enough Lynch and Kubrick to let a filmmaker take me to places where I’ll accept what I don’t fully comprehend.  But Nolan is operating on a different level.  He’s not offering anything profound.  He’s playing a trick called stump the audience.  You watch a scene, you think it’s reality, but it’s just a dream, or a dream within a dream.  It’s dreams all the way down.  And when he takes us back to reality in the end, all you can do is shrug.  Whatever you say, Christopher.

“We didn’t need dialogue.  We had faces!”

That’s Norma Desmond, of course, the aging and forgotten star of the silent era reflecting back on her glory days and complaining about the wretched state of the movies.  From our vantage, it’s not so easy to imagine that summer of 60 years ago, when Sunset Boulevard was released, as a time of Hollywood’s demise.  We’d say that’s part of the golden age (hey, Norma, you should see some of this summer’s movies). 

It was a very good year, 1950, with several notable films and a couple of classics that rank among my favorites.  Billy Wilder’s film noir was a scathing look at Hollywood.  With All About Eve, Broadway got the treatment.

Both films feature stories about actresses who are aging.  They are old for their profession.  Norma Desmond is all of 50, and Margo Channing is in her 40s.  Not so old, really, we’d like to think.  Age hasn’t slowed down the career of Meryl Streep, for example.  But someone like Streep is an exception, and for too many in the acting profession, age still matters.

Age is just part of the conversation at Slant Magazine, where Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard have a fascinating discussion about those two classic films of 1950.  Bellamy:

That actually segues nicely into another of Sunset Boulevard‘s famous moments: when Norma responds to Joe’s assessment that she “used to be big” by demanding, “I am big! It’s the picturesthat got small!” It’s a magnificent line—truly one of the best in cinema history—and, like the film’s equally famous final shot, it’s tempting to think of that line as nothing more than a sharp dagger to the heart of a misguided Hollywood. I mean, just think of the countless essays you’ve read that use Norma’s quote en route to a proclamation that Hollywood’s best years are behind it. Sure, there are lots of movie lines that are more celebrated or better recognized, but I’d be hard pressed to come up with one that cinephiles, on the whole, find more personally resonant. Because we’ve all been there: staring up at the closing credits of a lackluster movie with that empty feeling that Hollywood used to make ‘em better. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point. When Norma sneers that the pictures have gotten small, cinephiles reflexively nod their heads in agreement. We love her in that moment.

I think it can be fun to compare the two movies, though I’m not sure it’s useful to rank them.  In my world, each is about as good at what it does as can be imagined.  Mankiewicz deserves a little more credit than I think he gets at the Slant conversation.  The All About Eve screenplay is one of the very best in all of cinema, not just because of the wonderful dialogue, but for the intricate and perfectly executed story structure, weaving in points of view and voice-overs from multiple characters.  Yet the voice-over in Sunset Boulevard is a stroke of genius too.  As we learn, it’s from a man floating face-down in a swimming pool.  Neither film is strictly realistic.  All About Eve has an exaggerated theatricality to it, and Sunset Boulevard tends toward the gothic.  I’m partial to the latter, probably because I’m more fascinated by old Hollywood than old Broadway, not because it’s necessarily a better film.  Wilder, I should add, has a slant that is not only a good match for mine, but was influential in forming my own take on things.  Maybe that’s a chicken and egg thing, but he’s always been a favorite.

Yes, I’m still here.  Actually, I haven’t gone anywhere, though activity on the MADness—the Blog side has been quiet lately.  For a while, my routine had been a few blog posts a week (in addition to Movie Minute posts every weekday on the front page), but then nothing.  Somehow, nearly a month has slipped by.  What happened?  I got busy.  Demands on my time seem to be growing by the week, so I’ll be dropping in to say something whenever I can, but the schedule may be sporadic for a while.  I’ll aim to keep the weekday Movie Minutes coming as usual, though I may need to revert to “summer hours” at some point.

So what’s been going on?  Some old news, perhaps, but a few items worth noting:

Remembrances of Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)

F.X. Feeney in the L.A. Weekly:

At its depths, behind the camera or in front of it, Hopper’s legacy as a filmmaker is defined by a multitude of excellent performances, each alive with the iconic honesty Dean had pressed him to seek in himself. His particular genius as an artist was that he made himself at home within his own contradictions — and was perpetually eager to invite the rest of the world to join him there, laughing at the darkness.

Edward Copeland:

How many odd turns can one man’s life and career take? There’s probably no limit, but Dennis Hopper, who died at 74 after a long battle with cancer, took a lot of them: From young actor of film and TV in the 1950s to counterculture icon of the 1960s and ’70s (while adding director to his resume and still working with the likes of John Wayne); from nearly unemployable because of drugs to a career comeback in the mid-1980s before frequent returns to TV. On the side, he managed to find time to be a prolific photographer, painter and sculptor. His later years also brought the strangest twist for the hippie hero: he became a Republican. Still, it’s his film and TV work that will be his legacy.

I have a couple of recollections of Hopper, aside from his film work.  One, hearing him talk about working with James Dean, in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant.  He was in awe of Dean, and learned a lot from him.  Mostly, though, I remember Hopper’s fascination with acting.  It was just great to listen to him.  Two, seeing him work, which I had the chance to do on a film called Boiling Point, from 1993.  (If you look real hard, you can see my shoe in one of the scenes, my moment of glory on the big screen.)  Hopper and Wesley Snipes were the co-stars, but Hopper was the guy I wanted to watch.  He seemed to be an accessible, decent guy behind the scenes, and he gave a very good performance too.  I’ll remember Hopper for his films, more than anything, and particularly these:  Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, and Red Rock West.

Cannes

Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d’Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the first Thai film to win the top prize.

Recaps and perspectives worth reading:  Roger Ebert on the not-so-hot festival.  Manohla Dargis on the end of film.

The Gulf Oil Tragedy

James Cameron offers to help.  BP says no, thanks.  (I saw an interview with Cameron on TV.  He actually has expertise and access to equipment for deep-sea dives that might be helpful, to the government perhaps if not to BP.)

Program note:  a week of oil at the movies, starting Monday, on the front page.

Movie to See

There’ll be plenty of others this summer, but here’s one that’s got my curiosity:  Double Take. 

Now playing at New York’s Film Forum.  (Only 2,407 miles from here, says Moviefone, but maybe not this weekend for me.)

MAD About Movies Site News

It’s been a while since the last crossword, but another is on its way, soon as I get a chance to clue it.  That probably will not happen this week, unless I surprise myself.  The calendar is a tyrant.

A sincere thanks to those of you who have found the site and stop by to read about movies.  I started in January, not sure what to expect, and (except for a few time crunches along the way) I’m enjoying it.  Traffic is steadily growing every month.  May numbers were about 50% above April, so it’s good to know somebody (that’s you!) is out there.

As I had mentioned earlier this week, Preston Sturges doesn’t quite get the respect that I think he deserves.  He’s fairly well-known among film fans but not as well-known as other directors of his generation.  When the conversation is about auteurs and the “great” movies, Sturges and his films are often an afterthought if they’re given any thought at all.

Film critic extraordinaire Anthony Lane described the situation in his profile of Sturges (from Lane’s collection Nobody’s Perfect):

These works occupy a curious position in the pantheon of cinema, if there is such a place.  To anyone who knows his movies, they are not just entertaining; they are so obviously entertaining that only some vast, subterranean conspiracy can have stopped them from becoming as undyingly popular as Some Like It Hot or Diner, or any of the other standbys that everyone has on video, and that are ideally watched on damp Sunday nights with a tub of Chunky Monkey.  But the Sturges canon remains stubbornly half known; there are plenty of people who enjoy The Lady Eve without even realizing who made it.

Part of the problem is that Sturges made comedies, and the funny stuff never gets the respect it deserves.  What Sturges pulls off is rarer than you’ll find in dozens of Best Picture winners, but since he’s makes people laugh, they feel free not to take him seriously. 

The art of Sturges is the art of entertainment, and that poses a problem from some because “art” and “entertainment” are supposed to be two separate boxes and movies get put in one or the other but not often both. 

There are legit reasons to critique Sturges.  French director René Clair, by way of James Agee, believed Sturges was too quick for his own good; if he had slowed down he’d have been even greater.  Agee himself makes other points.  They may be right.  There’s valid criticism for every filmmaker, even the greatest.

Yet I’d guess Sturges is not overlooked because because he’s found wanting by those who give him serious consideration, but more often because he’s not taken seriously to begin with.  We suffer from a bad case of cultural amnesia, but I suspect that in time Sturges will be seen as one of those directors whose movies endure.  They still seem especially vital to me.  Much of what made audiences of the 1940s laugh seems very dated to us today, but Sturges and his films still do the trick.

People talk about great developments in film history—sound, color, widescreen, 3D.  I think it’s hard to overstate the value of the DVD audio commentary.  Hard to believe we ever lived without it.  I’m not interested in a lot of the special features the studios throw in, but the audio commentary—especially when a good director is doing it—is invaluable.  You can watch a film and get a film school education at the same time.

Anytime you have a chance to listen to Robert Altman, you should.  The man had a wealth of knowledge, insight, and wisdom.  Here are some comments he made for the DVD of Kansas City, his 1996 film about gangsters, jazz, and a kidnapping gone bad.  People in the business generally don’t say these kinds of things, in deference to the powers that be.  Altman didn’t pull his punches.

Altman, on film preservation, money, and art:

Ten, twelve years ago, I would say most of my films were lost.  The films I made in the ’60 and the ’70s—they were using a really cheap kind of stock then, Kodak stock, and the film didn’t last.  It deteriorated.  The color went.  It’s very expensive to remaster those films.  That’s what Scorsese, and myself, and many of us have with this film program of saving these films.

It’s kind of a silly thing, when you think about it, that we go out and raise the money—a lot of money—in order to save the assets of a company that won’t spend that money themselves.  We do it for them, and it’s amazing how much people will do for art.  And that’s why I don’t even get angry with people—people who are in the money part of this business:  they’re of no interest to me whatsoever.  I use them and their money to make my films, cause that’s all I’m concerned about.  A hundred years from now, whether they were very successful or not is not going to have any bearing on anybody, anywhere, anytime.

But the fact that our culture has come to such a point that the people who have the money won’t be responsible for the material they deal with—I find it obscene.  They should be doing that.  They should say, “God, how do we pay back what they’ve given us?”  These people all drive more cars than they can afford garages for, they build up these mass fortunes, and they don’t really mean anything.  But that’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been, and I think that’s the way it always will be.  Until we can get to a gentler place.

I think that America has become very, very mean-spirited in the last 20 years or so, 20, 30 years.  It used to be that art had an importance.  We found an audience—because there is an audience out there for it—you just have to deliver it to that audience.  And now we have an audience that’s built up of mainly 14-year-old males.  They come to all these multiplexes.  They have a whole social life there.  So we just want to keep feeding stuff in that serves that purpose.

By now you have heard that the great Akira Kurosawa would have turned 100 on Tuesday, the 23th.  No better way to celebrate the day than by tuning into TCM.

It’s Kurosawa all day.  A great way to catch up on some classics.  (All times ET.) 

Happy 100! 

6:00am		Sanshiro Sugata (1943) A young man struggles to learn the ssence of the martial arts. Cast: Sugisaku Aoyama, Susumu Fujita, Denjiro Okochi, Takashi Shimura Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-79 mins, TV-PG
7:30am		Most Beautiful, The (1944) Japanese women sacrifice everything for the war effort. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Ichiro Sugai, Yoko Yaguchi, Takako Irie Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-85 mins, TV-PG
9:00am		Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, The (1945) In medieval Japan, a feudal lord undertakes a perilous mission to put his brother’s soul to rest. Cast: Denjiro Okochi, Susumu Fujita, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-59 mins, TV-PG
10:00am		Sanshiro Sugata Part 2 (1945) A judo fighter continues his training to prove his superiority to foreign challengers. Cast: Susumu Fujita, Denjiro Okochi, Akitake Kono, Ryunosuke Tsukigata Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-82 mins, TV-PG
11:30am		No Regrets For Our Youth (1946) A woman flees society after seeing her father and lover destroyed by government oppression. Cast: Denjiro Okochi, Eiko Miyoshi, Setsuko Hara, Susumu Fujita Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-110 mins, TV-PG
1:30pm		One Wonderful Sunday (1947) An engaged couple tries to enjoy their Sunday holiday without spending any money. Cast: Midori Ariyama, Chieko Nakakita, Ichiro Sugai, Isao Numasaki Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-109 mins, TV-PG
3:30pm		Drunken Angel (1948) An alcoholic doctor builds a shaky friendship with a dying gangster. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Michiyo Kogure, Chieko Nakakita Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-98 mins, TV-PG
5:19pm		Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Dogs ‘N Ducks (1953) BW-10 mins
5:30pm		Stray Dog (1949) When a detective’s gun is stolen, he tears apart the underworld to get it back. Cast: Takashi Shimura, Ko Kimura, Toshiro Mifune, Keiko Awaji Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-122 mins, TV-PG

What’s On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: AKIRA KUROSAWA’S 100TH BIRTHDAY
8:00pm		Rashomon (1950) In medieval Japan, four people offer conflicting accounts of a rape and murder. Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Masayuki Mori Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-88 mins, TV-PG
9:30pm		Seven Samurai (1954) Japanese villagers hire a team of traveling samurai to defend them against a bandit attack. Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Kuninori Kodo, Yoshio Inaba Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-207 mins, TV-14
1:00am		Yojimbo (1961) A samurai-for-hire sets the warring factions of a Japanese town against each other. Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Eijiro Tono, Seizaburo Kawazu, Isuzu Yamada Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-111 mins, TV-14
3:00am		Sanjuro (1962) A wandering samurai recruits younger fighters to help him battle corruption. Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Takashi Shimura, Yuzo Kayama Dir: Akira Kurosawa BW-96 mins, TV-14

The ghostwriter does not get his name on the cover.  No one knows who he is.  People will buy the book, or not, for its subject.  The author does not matter.  That’s the way it works in the book business, at least when it comes to political biography.

When it comes to movies, and especially the recent movie about a ghostwriter and his subject, a former British prime minister named Adam Lang, it matters greatly who the author—or in this case, director—is.  Especially when his name is Roman Polanski.

The reaction to his new film The Ghost Writer is very divided.  Critics generally have been positive, and some have been especially enthusiastic.  But other reaction I’ve read has been highly negative.  The film is very good, though hardly perfect—yet some of the negative reaction doesn’t seem to me to be in proportion to whatever flaws the film has.  I suspect if the director were anyone other than Roman Polanski we wouldn’t be hearing some of that vitriol.

Pierce Brosnan gives a terrific performance as Adam Lang, a role patterned on Tony Blair in some ways.  Ewan McGregor plays the ghostwriter.  He doesn’t even get a name in the movie—he’s just the writer, or more often “the ghost.” Polanski might want to try that next time out.

Several of the things I’ve been reading this week in one way or another relate to women in Hollywood.  Here are a few links, in case you’re interested.

How Oscar Found Ms. Right
There are times when I think the best writer covering film today is Manohla Dargis at the New York Times.  When I read this article it was one of those times.  Dargis gives the best take I’ve read on the Oscars for Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker and takes on a few other women to make her point.  (Read more about scopophilia here and here.)

Unless they star Meryl Streep, movies about women are routinely dismissed because they’re about women, as the patronizing term “chick flick” affirms every time it’s reflexively deployed. But chick flicks are often the only movies that offer female audiences stories about women and female friendships and a world that, however artificial, offers up female characters who are not standing on the sidelines as the male hero saves the day. It might not be much and usually isn’t, at least in aesthetic terms, but it’s sometimes all there is. Ms. Bigelow doesn’t make those kinds of movies. (Her vampires don’t sparkle, they draw blood.) She generally makes kinetic and thrilling movies about men and codes of masculinity set in worlds of violence. Her technique might be masterly [sic], because she learned from the likes of Sam Peckinpah. But she is very much her own woman, and her own auteur.

Pretty ugly: Can we please stop pretending that beautiful women aren’t beautiful?
I don’t watch TV much.  At some point in my adult life, I came to the conclusion there were better things to do with my time.  But I watched a lot when I was younger, and I remember having very much the same conversation back in a college dorm.  Actresses you see on TV, or on the big screen, for that matter—even the ones you who are supposed to be playing “ugly”—and still quite beautiful by almost any standard, and yes, that distorts even further what society thinks about women and beauty.  (Some things never change.  Bette Davis at times described herself as the ugly ducking.  You wouldn’t know it from looking at the picture here.)

Does a Best Actress Oscar Lead to Divorce?
Something  more than coincidence seens to be going on, I’d say.

It takes three days for the accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers to count all the ballots of Academy voters.  They’ll be done sometime today, at which point exactly two people will know the names of the winners.  The rest of us get the news Sunday night.

In the meantime we can make predictions.  If we didn’t make predictions, we wouldn’t have any surprises.  I hope there might be a few at the big show, but at this time it all looks very predictable.

You can take a look at what I see in my crystal ball, my picks for the Oscars.

Best Picture

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  Oscar gets it right!  All the talk is that it’s a two-picture race.  If so, it really shouldn’t be close.  Avatar is technically stunning and visually imaginative, but it doesn’t compare to The Hurt Locker as a complete film.  With District 9 in the running, sci-fi fans have another place to put their vote.  That should help Kathyrn Bigelow’s film.  I’ve read that the new preference voting procedures also will work against Avatar, but I don’t think anybody really knows which film will benefit from the new process.

Best Actor

• Jeff Bridges Crazy Heart
• George Clooney Up in the Air
• Colin Firth A Single Man
• Morgan Freeman Invictus
• Jeremy Renner The Hurt Locker

The winner:  Jeff Bridges
The verdict:  It’s about time!  I can’t seeing anyone else winning, but if there is a longshot winner, it’ll be Colin Firth.

Best Supporting Actor

• Matt Damonin Invictus
• Woody Harrelson The Messenger
• Christopher Plummer The Last Station
• Stanley Tucci The Lovely Bones
• Christoph Waltz Inglourious Basterds

The winner:  Christoph Waltz
The verdict:  A terrific performance and a well-deserved win.  The dark horse is Woody Harrelson.

Best Actress

• Sandra Bullock The Blind Side
• Helen Mirren The Last Station
• Carey Mulligan An Education
• Gabourey Sidibe Precious
• Meryl Streep Julie & Julia

The winner:  Sandra Bullock
The verdict:  Somehow the thinking with Academy voters seems to go like this:  Meryl Streep gave a great performance this year, so let’s give her a nomination—but let’s give the Oscar to someone else.  It’s been 27 years since her last win (she has 16 noms altogether), and there’s no reason to keep her waiting any longer.  Perhaps if they had preference voting for Best Actress (it’s only used for Best Picture, though), Streep would have a third little man for her mantel.  That said, my rooting interest here is for Carey Mulligan.

Best Supporting Actress

• Penélope Cruz Nine
• Vera Farmiga Up in the Air
• Maggie Gyllenhaal Crazy Heart
• Anna Kendrick Up in the Air
• Mo’Nique Precious

The winner:  Mo’Nique
The verdict:  No contest.

Best Director

• Avatar James Cameron
• The Hurt Locker Kathryn Bigelow
• Inglourious Basterds Quentin Tarantino
• Precious Lee Daniels
• Up in the Air Jason Reitman

The winner:  Kathryn Bigelow
The verdict:  The headlines will be:  A Woman Wins (Finally).  Bottom line:  Bigelow deserves it.

Foreign Language Film

• Ajami Israel
• The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada) Peru
• A Prophet (Un Prophète) France
• The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) Argentina
• The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) Germany

The winner:  A Prophet
The verdict:  It’s a powerful film, but not the kind of material that often wins the Oscar.  I have not yet seen the South American films so I can’t judge, but the buzz for the Argentine entry is strong, and it has an excellent chance to win.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• District 9 Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
• An Education Screenplay by Nick Hornby
• In the Loop Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
• Precious Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher
• Up in the Air Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

The winner:  Up in the Air
The verdict:  A smart screenplay.  Writing is a lot more than dialogue, but the dialogue is what people remember, and the dialogue in Up in the Air is sharp and reminiscent of Hollywood classics of the past.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• The Hurt Locker Written by Mark Boal
• Inglourious Basterds Written by Quentin Tarantino
• The Messenger Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman
• A Serious Man Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  The Hurt Locker by a nose, but don’t count out Tarantino.

Animated Feature Film

• Coraline Henry Selick
• Fantastic Mr. Fox Wes Anderson
• The Princess and the Frog John Musker and Ron Clements
• The Secret of Kells Tomm Moore
• Up Pete Docter

The winner:  Up

Art Direction

• Avatar
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• Nine
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Young Victoria

The winner:  Avatar

Cinematography

• Avatar Mauro Fiore
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Bruno Delbonnel
• The Hurt Locker Barry Ackroyd
• Inglourious Basterds Robert Richardson
• The White Ribbon Christian Berger

The winner:  The Hurt Locker
The verdict:  I wouldn’t mind seeing The White Ribbon win, but I’m a sucker for black-and-white.

Costume Design

• Bright Star Janet Patterson
• Coco before Chanel Catherine Leterrier
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Monique Prudhomme
• Nine Colleen Atwood
• The Young Victoria Sandy Powell

The winner:  Coco Before Chanel
The verdict:  Everyone in the know is picking The Young Victoria, but I need to be a contrarian somewhere.

Documentary (Feature)

• Burma VJ Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
• The Cove Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens
• Food, Inc. Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
• Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa

The winner:  The Cove

Documentary (Short Subject)

• China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
• The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
• The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
• Music by Prudence Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
• Rabbit à la Berlin Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

The winner:  Music by Prudence

Film Editing

• Avatar Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
• District 9 Julian Clarke
• The Hurt Locker Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
• Inglourious Basterds Sally Menke
• Precious Joe Klotz

The winner:  The Hurt Locker

Makeup

• Il Divo
• Star Trek
• The Young Victoria

The winner:  Star Trek
The verdict:  A well-liked sci-fi film (though I was lukewarm) gets its one Oscar.

Music (Original Score)

• Avatar James Horner
• Fantastic Mr. Fox Alexandre Desplat
• The Hurt Locker Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
• Sherlock Holmes Hans Zimmer
• Up Michael Giacchino

The winner:  Up
The verdict:  Michael Giacchino’s score was just terrific.

Music (Original Song)

• Almost There (from “The Princess and the Frog,” by Randy Newman)
• Down in New Orleans (from “The Princess and the Frog,” by Randy Newman)
• Loin de Paname (from “Paris 36,” by Reinhardt Wagner, Frank Thomas)
• Take It All (from “Nine,” by Maury Yeston)
• The Weary Kind (Theme from “Crazy Heart”) (by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett)

The winner:  The Weary Kind
The verdict:  I’m not sure it was the best song in the film, but it’s the best of the nominees.

Short Film (Animated)

• French Roast
• Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
• The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
• Logorama
• A Matter of Loaf and Death

The winner:  A Matter of Loaf and Death
The verdict:  Never bet against Nick Park.

Short Film (Live Action)

• The Door
• Instead of Abracadabra
• Kavi
• Miracle Fish
• The New Tenants

The winner:  Kavi
The verdict:  Picking winners when you haven’t seen the films is a little like picking racehorses based on their names. 

Sound Editing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Up

The winner:  Avatar

Sound Mixing

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Star Trek
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The winner:  Avatar

Visual Effects

• Avatar
• District 9
• Star Trek

The winner:  Avatar