C. Adolph's 2010 Oscar Predictions

Updated results below, at end of post!!!!!!!

I’m just going to come right out and say it. No decent film lover or cinema enthusiast should take anything related to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seriously. It’s a rigged, multi-faceted con game of celebrity ego, shallow popularity, industry onanism and shady horse trading.
Rarely, if ever, are the most deserving films and/or people awarded and significantly less often are the proper films and people even nominated.
It’s an MTV/Nickelodeon awards ceremony for dimwitted adult philistines.
Which is not to say that the gambling possibilities involved in such an endeavor are not ripe for the plucking.
Over the years I have cast my lot into various Oscar pools, ran a few of my own, won a few, been cheated out of a few more, but always managed to make a good showing. Which is not typically true for those with the breadth of film knowledge and aesthetic purity that I possess. Generally, impeccable taste and an undying belief that not every year has to turn into an artistic mind fuck for the truly talented tends to create gaping errors in Oscar pool judgment. Better off to peer into the Hollywood abyss with a cynical eye and realize that pool winners are born from the calculative appreciation of knowing what the vapid cesspool of entertainment professionals will likely vote for above the Pollyanna naiveté of believing they will do what is just and true. Or, if you are a complete idiot, choosing your personal favorite to win, assuring you a crushing defeat.   
This year will be a bit different for me. Once upon a time I made it my business to see most, if not all, of the nominated films prior to the ceremony, thinking this would give me the ultimate edge in prognostication. I found over the years that it could easily be argued that ingesting all of the nominees beforehand was inversely damaging to one's ability to predict the winners. Too many personal issues get in the way of sound, cool-headed, bloodless judgment. Especially with the technical categories. One tiny glimpse of a finely crafted garment of chic modernism and your temporary bias could overcome the inevitable fact that stodgy English period pieces almost always win for "Costume Design". Similarly, having seen the four astoundingly better performances by other supporting actresses in 1990 would have cost you. Simply for doing what was decent and sensible by not voting for Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost.
And this year is particularly noxious for not including what should have been a no-brainer, shoo-in for “Best Picture” along with many other awards - The Road. Its lack of a single nomination reeks of politics.
It’s all a fool’s game.
Fortunately, I have a sixth sense for fools.
So hop up on the C. Adolph Oscar Pool Bandwagon and come on in for the big win.
Without further ado:

C. Adolph’s 2010 Academy Award Predictions

Best Picture - This is a perfect example of how abysmally self-gratifying this has all become for the motion picture industry. There has been a slew of films in this category recently that aren’t even good enough to be nominated, let alone win (Slumdog Millionaire, Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Chicago, A Beautiful Mind, ad nausea), so the Academy’s answer to this dilemma is to expand the fucking field to ten nominees. “What’s that you say? Your plate of shit is displeasing? Let’s just spoon some more on there for you.”
Winner: The Hurt Locker

Best Actor - Two man race. Clooney’s losing wind.
Winner: Jeff Bridges

Best Actress - Been a long time for Streep (who was robbed for Doubt) and Julia Child is a beloved icon, but the Hollywood race often goes to the shallow.
Winner: Sandra Bullock

Best Director - ‘Bout time a chick won this thing. Hell, there’s a black President. Might as well be female directors. I just wish Bigelow’s oeuvre was a little more impressive. I mean - Mission Zero, K-19: The Widowmaker, Strange Days and Point Break? C’mon. Renny Harlin deserves an Oscar by those standards. She did have to fuck James Cameron for a few years, however. She’s probably earned it. God knows the evil kinks that man must demand to be satisfied.
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow

Best Supporting Actor - Way too much buzz on Waltz for him not to win.
Winner: Christoph Waltz

Best Supporting Actress - So you don’t think the Academy Awards and all it stands for is so much bilge water? After Sunday night - Number of Oscars: Stanley Kubrick - 0, Mo’Nique - 1.
Winner: Mo’Nique

Best Original Screenplay - I’m leaning Hurt Locker here and if it does beat out Inglorious Basterds  for this it should win “Best Picture” over Avatar.
Winner: Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay - No contest.
Winner: Up in the Air

Best Foreign Language Film - Got to go with the Krauts this year.
Winner: The White Ribbon

Best Animated Feature Film - What a bullshit category. And the best actor Oscar goes to… Stewie Griffin!
Winner: Up

And the technicals…

Art Direction
Winner: Avatar

Cinematography
Winner: Avatar

Costume Design
Winner: The Young Victoria

Documentary
Winner: The Cove

Film Editing
Winner: The Hurt locker

Makeup
Winner: Star Trek

Original Score
Winner: Up

Original Song
Winner: “The Weary Kind”, Crazy Heart

Sound Editing
Winner: Avatar

Sound Mixing
Winner: Avatar

Visual Effects
Winner: Avatar

Update on Monday, March 8, 2010 at 7:10AM by C. Adolph Moores

17 for 21, Bitches! Including 6 for 6 in the major awards. To paraphrase the immortally asinine Thomas Friedman, "Suck.On.That."

I missed both sound categories (editing & mixing) which puzzlingly went to Hurt Locker when most other technical awards were leaning heavily toward Avatar. I was also tripped up by Argentina's El Secreto de sus Ojo which upset the odds-on favorite, The White Ribbon from Germany, which had garnered a cinematography nomination. Generally, a sign of a sure thing for that category.

Most troubling was my "Adapted Screenplay" miscue by taking Up in the Air over Precious. And I probably was foolish for doing this. When the Great Almighty comes down to write the names of the chosen on the wall of American literature it will read, "Melville, Poe, Twain, Hemingway, Williams, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Fitzgerald, Chandler, Steinbeck and... Sapphire."

Who am I to quibble?