2010 Academy Awards

Get your Oscar pool ready, the nominations are in

Kathryn Bigelow is nominated for best director for "The Hurt Locker." The movieis up for best picture as well.
"Avatar" garnered nine nominations, tying "The Hurt Locker" for the mostnominations this year.
Gabourey Sidibe is nominated for best actress in a leading role for "Precious:Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." It's also up for best picture.
George Clooney is nominated for actor in a leading role in "Up in the Air." Themovie, produced by Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, got a bestpicture nomination.
Sandra Bullock is a favorite to win best actress for her role in "The BlindSide." It also received a surprise nomination for best picture.

James Cameron may again be the king of the world – but his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, most certainly is the queen. And their respective movies – Bigelow’s critically acclaimed The Hurt Locker and Cameron’s phenomenally successful Avatar – will be viewed as heavyweight contenders in a David-versus-Goliath match-up during the weeks leading up to next month’s presentation of the 82nd annual Academy Awards.

That’s the scenario most Hollywood insiders and industry observers took away from Tuesday’s early-morning announcement of Oscar nominations. Complicating the plot: This year, for the first time since the 1943 Oscar ceremony, there are 10 Best Picture nominees instead of the usual five. Which means that, in addition to competing against each other for the hearts and minds (and votes) of Academy members, Avatar and The Hurt Locker – leaders of the pack with nine nominations each – will be facing off against The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds (the scourge of proofreaders everywhere), Precious, A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air.

There is, of course, the possibility of a surprise twist. After all, Academy bigwigs expanded the Best Picture category in the first place to allow for the inclusion of more “populist” nominees, box-office hits that actually have been seen by significant numbers of people – like, say, last year’s conspicuously un-nominated The Dark Knight. With more of those movies in play, it’s assumed, more viewers will be sufficiently interested to tune in and boost ratings for the March 7 Oscarcast. At the same time, it’s also assumed that the suspense quotient will be raised by the possibility, however remote, of an upset by a high-grossing crowd-pleaser like The Blind Side.

It’s a long shot, to be sure. But if you doubt that a true underdog could ever triumph over more heavily hyped competitors in the Best Picture category, go talk to the makers of Reds and On Golden Pond, the “sure things” that split the vote and lost the gold to Chariots of Fire back in 1982.

My early line Oscar predictions:

Actor in a Leading Role

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

Likely Winner: Bridges. Possible upset: Clooney.

Actor in a Supporting Role 

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

Mortal lock: Waltz

Actress in a Leading Role 

Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
 Helen Mirren in The Last Station 
Carey Mulligan in An Education 
Gabourey Sidibe in Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire 
Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia

Likely winner: Bullock. Possible upset: Streep. (Yeah, I can’t believe I typed that, either. But let’s face it: This is Bullock’s time. And good for her.)

Actress in a Supporting Role 

Penelope Cruz in Nine 
Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air 
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart 
Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air 
Mo’Nique in Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Mortal lock: Mo’Nique

Adapted Screenplay

 District 9, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell 
An Education, Nick Hornby 
In the Loop, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche
 Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Geoffrey Fletcher
 Up in the Air, Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Likely winner: Up in the Air. (Think of it as a consolation prize.) Possible upset: In the Loop.

Original Screenplay 

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

Likely winner: Inglourious Basterds. Possible upset: The Hurt Locker. (Especially if there’s need for another consolation prize.) Conspicuous by its absence: Avatar.

Director 

Avatar, James Cameron 
The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow 
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino 
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Lee Daniels
 Up in the Air, Jason Reitman

Likely winner: Bigelow. (When enough voters fall in love with the idea of making history, history is made. Just ask Barack Obama.) Possible upset: Cameron.

And Best Picture? Well, it’s good to be the king. But even better to be the top moneymaker in the world.

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Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

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