My wholly serious (if not stone-set) prediction earlier this week that “Inglourious Basterds” would take the Best Picture Oscar, along with three other statuettes, prompted more discussion than I thought it would. (I sure am glad this many people weren’t paying attention when I predicted a “WALL-E” win last year.)
The pundit who got the most pleasure out of my guess was, of course, Tom O’Neil — who called it for “Basterds” back in November. Like most, I thought he was off his rocker at the time. Now, I humbly concede he might have been onto something.
I happily submit that my idea may be wildly off-base, but it’s not underthought. To clarify that, here are 10 reasons I’m going with “Basterds” — one for each nomination I expect the film to get.
Speaking of which:
The nomination leader: Precisely what I expect the film to be. Right now, I’m predicting the film will racks up nods for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing and Sound Mixing, with a surprise, category-corrected Supporting Actress bid for Mélanie Laurent bringing it to an even 10. Nowadays, landing the most nominations isn’t the check-mate move that it was in the 1990s, but a leading tally — particularly one that catches some industry folk off-guard — would increase the amount of chatter around the film.
The Harvey factor: His golden touch of the 1990s may have waned slightly, but as “The Reader” sneakily reminded us last year, having Harvey Weinstein on your side never did an awards contender any harm. The master Oscar strategist knows which side his bread is buttered: with his former number-one priority “Nine” crashing, count on him putting his full (and considerable) campaigning weight behind Tarantino & Co.
The best of both worlds: After last year’s “Dark Knight” fracas, there appears to be some industry pressure on the Academy to go more populist — part of the reason many are picking “Avatar” for the win. If, however, some find James Cameron’s film too crude or too genre-oriented, “Inglourious Basterds” offers a compromise of sorts: a certifiable hit ($120 million) that nonetheless boasts eccentric auteurist flavor and Cannes-endorsed arthouse cred. It’s the snob’s blockbuster in the race.
Diane Kruger: Or, to be more specific, that out-of-nowhere Best Supporting Actress nod for Kruger at the SAGs. It may seem a minor point, but it was when I heard her name announced that I realized the extent of the film’s pull. Clearly, the actors (the largest voting branch in the Academy) are all over the film; Like “Crash” before it, I’m counting on it riding the SAG ensemble award to a Best Picture win, even if it misses with other Guilds. (Kruger probably won’t be Oscar-nominated, but look at her SAG nod as a placeholder for Laurent, who wasn’t eligible in the supporting race.)
International flavor: It’s worth bearing in mind that the Academy isn’t quite as American in its makeup as the Guilds, with a not-insignificant British and European contingent that often makes its presence felt. “Inglourious Basterds” may be an American work, but its European setting, multi-national cast and abundant non-English dialogue give it more of a co-production feel than its compatriots; with only “An Education” likely to represent non-U.S. cinema in the top category, that international identity could work in its favor.
All bases covered: Of the top-tier contenders, it could end up with the widest spread of support across the voting branches, with bids for directing, writing, acting and in a number of craft and design fields. “Avatar” faces obstacles in acting and writing, as does “Up in the Air” in techs; only “The Hurt Locker” is also set to score in all four areas. This isn’t a deal-breaker, but it could come in useful when it comes to…
The preferential ballot: As you surely know, this will be the first year the Academy uses preferential voting in the Best Picture race, determining the winner based on rankings rather than single votes. This ostensibly favors the most broadly liked (or least resented) film in contention. It could be that an “Up in the Air” benefits more from the system than a polarizing oddity like “Basterds,” but visible support across the branches can only help.
Tarantino the teddy bear: 15 years ago, when Quentin Tarantino was last in the Oscar race, he was an upstart enfant terrible still outside the club. Today, Tarantino is the cuddly face of American auteurism, to the degree that he even commands a presenting slot at the Oscars. His oddball nature and enthusiastic cineaste passions make him a more endearing figure than, say, James Cameron, and a more identifiable one than, say, Jason Reitman. That might not win him Best Director, but it increases the amount of goodwill toward his film.
When all is said and done, it’s still a Holocaust movie: A strange and wilfully silly one, sure, but a Holocaust movie all the same. You know that never hurts.
I don’t like it much: Not a scientific factor, I admit, but sometimes you just get a feeling the race isn’t going your way. And after three consecutive years of me agreeing with the Academy’s Best Picture choices (within the confines of their nominations, at least), something has to give, surely. Admittedly, this voodoo-in-reverse could just as easily benefit “Avatar,” “Precious” or “Up in the Air,” but on reflection, I think “Basterds” is a better film than all those. Barring a win for “The Hurt Locker,” I need something to hold onto.
Comments
66 responses to “Why I’m backing the Basterds”
Thank God someone wrote this text. Thank you, Guy. This is everything I’d like to ay about Baterds, it’s the best choice for the Best Picture Oscar. I hope it wins.
Andrew that is clearly cherry picking. You are reading into the “Cream of The Crop” score on rotten tomatoes. Let me tell you exactly what happened, you went to Rotten Tomatoes expecting to see a higher number for Avatar then Basterds. In reality you found Basterds had 88% where as Avatar had 83%. Both respected numbers, alas not universal praise. So you decided to just use Cream of The Crop instead of the real deal, hoping I wouldn’t call you on it.
Now even if you are narrow minded enough to just go by what rotten tomatoes considers the only worth while critics that still doesn’t erase the fact that if 94% is universal praise, give congratulatory remarks to one of this years Oscar Frontrunners “Drag Me To Hell” Whats that you say? Drag me To Hell is not a clear cut winner? But it almost meets your very odd standards of consideration Mr. Andrew.
The thing with Metacritic is averages scores that critics give films, not the percentage of who liked what. So Rotten Tomatoes have proven that more critics liked Basterds than Avatar, Metacritic only proves that those critics who liked Avatar liked it more than those critics who liked Basterds. This is exactly why Guy, as well as myself, believes Basterds has a chance, a similar situation may occur with oscar voters. While some may place Avatar Number 1 on their ballots, others may place it as far back 5 or 6. Some might even place it 10. Meanwhile, there seems to be across the board support for Basterds, despite the fact that its not likely to get a lot of 1st votes.
Now then, I did read your first comment, I just didn’t believe it. If you really disliked the film you wouldn’t have based your arguments on its “themes” but rather on the statistical reasons you barely touched upon.
Right now I’m seeing a similarity to 2002’s Best Actor Race when it was all about DDL vs Jack, and Adrien Brody squeaked past them. Now it’s Avatar vs Up In the Air, with IB ready to squeak by. Only difference is that there’s a fourth horse (Hurt Locker) that could beat them all. Very interesting.
Too bad, for Kruger deserves the nod. But I believe it won’t happen either. Laurent will step in.
“E.T. didnt win when it became one of the biggest movies of all time. STAR WARS didn’t win.”
but titanic did.
avatar has two things going for it: The James Cameron Factor™ and the academy looking to right the wrong of not nominating the dark knight (and seriously, has anyone even *thought* about the reader since last march?). i mean, isn’t that why the expanded to 10 nominations?
i think avatar is ghastly piece of shit, but even i’m not foolish enough to deny the writing on the wall. this is JC’s world; we’re all just here to give him money.
Preferential balloting in the Best Picture race means it needs 50%+1 votes to win, right [I’m not entirely certain about this but I remember reading somewhere that it’s different from the nominations system which requires a film to get (number of votes)/(number of nominations) +1]
I’m not holding out any hope that IB will be the first film to reach 50%+1 before any of the other films in such a system. I’m also a bit wary of your assertion that IB is the snob’s populist hit. I think it is too but I feel like in this system, those voters would likely vote for the auteur-driven film first, which I think at this point, as determined by the critics groups would be The Hurt Locker, and then they’d begrudgingly send a vote to IB. This means that IB would only get those votes to its tally when Hurt Locker is eliminated and I’m just uncertain that Hurt Locker would be eliminated before IB. Ugh, this preferential stuff is giving me a headache.
(This is ofcourse predicated on the idea that the Academy voters will actually know how to vote and check off their ballot. Which, I’m not holding any breath for)
Tangled: You’re right, the required amount is over 50%.
Another thing that the preferential system makes more difficult is the ‘split the vote’ argument. Because unless one film gallops away and gets to the mythical number of votes first (unlikely to be IB in a split vote situation since sizeable portions of the vote would have gone to the two favourites) you have to start looking at what the people who voted for the film with the smallest number of votes put as number 2 on their ballot.
I guess this is really dependentwhich 10 get in, so it’s a bit preemptive to talk about it now. But let’s go with the generally accepted 7-8 film lineup for now. Say the film with the least votes is Up. What is the film that people who thought Up was the best movie of the year would think was the second best? What would the people who think Invictus was number 1? Or An Education? (Actually, Guy’s point about the international appeal of IB could apply here)
I know it’s presumptuous to generalise someone’s tastes like this and you know, humans=multifaceted blahblah but the overall mood of the best picture line-up is a bit bland/safe this year (in terms of the bottom half, anyway) and skewed toward fairly feel-good pieces. I don’t know if IB would be the 2nd/3rd choice of people who enjoy that type dramatic sincerity in their movies? Which is why I think Up in the Air could benefit a lot from the bump up to 10 if we get filler material. If we get interesting choices/surprises to the tune of, say, A Serious Man, I’ll have to rethink this. (Here’s hoping)
10 nominations + preferential balloting + 4 weeks til nominations + 8 weeks til polls close = It’s anybody’s–and I mean ANYBODY’s–race to win. But if the Oscars were being handed out on January 10, Avatar would win Best Picture, assuming it were nominated against Precious, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Up in the Air, Nine, Invictus etc.
The fact that the Academy wants to make up for Dark Knight’s snub will actually hurt Avatar, at least I think so. The 10 nomination change is just a viewer grab, something along the lines of “its an honer just to be nominated.” With people’s content of a nomination a win is superfluous, especially because it doesn’t have nearly the academy support that people like to say it has.
AI:
I didn’t include rotten tomatoes full score because they have way too many fanboys with blogs showing silly reviews that don’t count. Those people are not part of the industry like the mainstream critics are. They are plain fanboys.
You really are stuburn, aren’t you? I wouldn’t even nominate Avatar for Best Picture but because your argument is wrong, you have to attack me.
To the person who said Kruger acted really well in German: she is German, so I certainly would hope so. Not to detract from her achievement at all. I quite like her work (though it’s been said countless times–Waltz and Laurent are best in show).
Andrew 61:
I didn’t attack you on my own merit, you bought it up and told me to read it, so I told you why I dismissed your comment in the first place.
Somebody should explain to me why some people thinks Academy loves Mélanie Laurent more than Diane Kruger. Laurent wasn’t nominated for the SAG, hell even Joan Allen was nominated in 1995 in one of the most strongers years for lead female performances and Laurent could’t get nominated fighting against Helen Mirren or Sandra Bullock? Actors loved Kruger in Bastersd and she is playing an actress, enough said.
So it’s Avatar vs. Hurt Locker vs. Inglourious Basterds vs. Up in the Air right now. I really don’t know which one to predict, it seems either could win at the moment. The Golden Globes, SAGs, PGA and DGA will certainly clear things up. All I know is that I’m good with either of those winning except for the vastly overrated “Up in the Air”.
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