While I'm still fairly convinced that the Best Picture race is a race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker (with The Hurt Locker maintaining a slight edge), there's a dark horse on the track that we should consider a threat to both—Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
This is one example of where a contender might substantially benefit from the newly implemented preferential voting system. I'm still hazy on the details, but in layman's terms, the system will be advantageous to films with an intense following, those that are likely to be placed #1 on many ballots. From where I'm sitting, Inglourious Basterds may not have the greatest number of followers, but they might have the loudest.
There's also another factor that only just now came to my attention—Inglourious Basterds has the Oscar Agent himself, Harvey Weinstein, behind it. And in an interview with The Envelope's Pete Hammond today (which I read via Awards Daily), Weinstein made it perfectly clear that he's pulling out the big guns:
"We're going to win best picture. This is the movie people love and it's Quentin's time. We are going for it and we are gonna get it."
Add to this that Inglourious Basterds has every kind of support it needs—the actors (with the SAG ensemble win), directors (DGA), writers (WGA), and that key editing nomination.
And in all honesty, I'd probably cheer my face off if they actually pull this off.
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I really enjoyed Inglorious Basterds and would love to see it win Best Picture (although a small movie like The Hurt Locker would be good too). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this won especially since Harvey Weinstein is behind it. He's helped (paid for) many other winners when it comes to the Oscars in the past and could certainly do it this time.
ReplyDeleteI also was thinking this could be a spoiler--expecially considering the new way they are voting (ranking the 10 films). I'd be happy if it won--although I'd really like to see The Hurt Locker pull it off!
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