When the Odds was launched just over a year ago, I took a stab at predicting the 2009 Oscar race – and prefaced it by saying that anybody who thinks they can divine the Best Picture winner in the first week of September is a fool.
But I went ahead and did it anyway, suggesting that “The Hurt Locker” would win.
I said that it had the feel of a film that would hang on and grow in stature, and that I just didn’t trust the buzz on all the other films on the horizon, from “Up in the Air” to “Nine” to “Avatar.” (Read “Is 2009’s Best Picture Winner Already Under Our Noses?”)
Now it’s time to celebrate the anniversary of that lucky guess -- I mean that brilliant prediction -- and to look at the state of the 2010 Oscar race in these final days before the Toronto International Film Festival. Which is to say, before we really know much of anything.
And while I thought that one of 2009’s summer releases had what it took to be the last film standing, I don’t see anything similar this year. The 2010 race is even cloudier than usual, and predictions even harder to make with any degree of confidence.
Have we seen some of the Best Picture nominees already? Sure. “The Kids Are All Right” seems to be in a healthy position, buoyed by good box office figures and what I hear was a very positive reception at its official Academy screening.
“Toy Story 3” and “Inception” are both frequently mentioned as likely nominees, and I’d put them on my list of probables – though I think both films are far from slam dunks, the first because of that troublesome numeral (sequels almost never get Best-Pic nominations), the second because it seems to awe younger viewers and confuse old-timers.
When I filled out my first “Gurus of Gold” ballot for the Movie City News website this week, I picked these 15 films as the likeliest Best Picture nominees:
“The King’s Speech” (photo above)
“The Social Network”
“127 Hours”
“The Kids Are All Right”
“Inception”
“Toy Story 3”
“Never Let Me Go”
“True Grit”
“The Fighter”
“Another Year”
“The Tree of Life”
“Black Swan”
“Love & Other Drugs”
“How Do You Know”
“The Conspirator”
For now, I’ve only seen four of those (“The Kids Are All Right,” “Inception,” “Toy Story” and “Never Let Me Go”), and the unseen films are riddled with potential pitfalls.
James L. Brooks’ “How Do You Know,” for instance, could be a commercial and critical hit like his Best-Pic winner "Terms of Endearment" and nominee “Broadcast News” – or it could be a dud, like “Spanglish.”
Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” has a high-class pedigree and a historical event (the Lincoln Assassination) to give it weight – but at the moment, it doesn’t even have a distributor.
