The big fad of late are some brilliant minimalist posters, for television, old movies, hell, Rotten Tomatoes has a contest going on about it. So…why not? I made one for every Best Picture nominee. Spread ‘em, please.

This is a complicated, frustrating year. Most of the films in contention aren’t that great, the great performances and films are being largely ignored, and no prognosticator can agree on where the noms are going to line up in this field of 10. Hell, not even the voters can pick ten films to vote for! The nominations come out in less than 72 hours, so here are my kind of gutsy but most likely fail-filled predictions. Le sigh.

Best Picture
1. Avatar
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Up in the Air
5. Precious
6. The Blind Side
7. A Serious Man
8. Crazy Heart
9. An Education
10. Invictus

Best Director
1. Jim Cameron – Avatar
2. Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
3. Jason Reitman – Up in the Air
4. Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds
5. Lee Daniels – Precious
Alternate: Clint Eastwood – Invictus

Best Actor
1. Colin Firth – A Single Man
2. Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
3. George Clooney – Up in the Air
4. Morgan Freeman – Invictus
5. Jeremy Renner – The Hurt Locker
Alternate: Sam Rockwell – Moon

Best Actress
1. Meryl Streep – Julie and Julia
2. Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
3. Carey Mulligan – An Education
4. Gabourey Sidibe – Precious
5. Tilda Swinton – Julia
Alternate: Melanie Laurent – Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actor
1. Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds
2. Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
3. Christopher Plummer – The Last Station
4. Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
5. Matt Damon – Invictus
Alternate: Peter Capaldi – In the Loop

Best Supporting Actress
1. Mo’Nique – Precious
2. Julianne Moore – A Single Man
3. Anna Kendrick – Up in the Air
4. Vera Farmiga – Up in the Air
5. Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
Alternate: Melanie Laurent – Inglourious Basterds

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Up in the Air
2. District 9
3. An Education
4. Precious
5. Julie & Julia
Alternate: A Single Man

Best Original Screenplay
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. (500) Days of Summer
3. The Hurt Locker
4. Up
5. A Serious Man
Alternate: It’s Complicated

Best Animated Feature
1. Up
2. Princess and the Frog
3. Coraline
4. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. Ponyo
Alternate: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Best Foreign Language Film
1. The White Ribbon
2. A Prophet
3. Samson & Delilah
4. The Secret in Their Eyes
5. The Milk of Sorrow
Alternate: Winter in Wartime

Best Documentary
1. The Cove
2. Food Inc.
3. Burma VJ
4. The Beaches of Agnes
5. Every Little Step
Alternate: Mugabe and the White African

Best Art Direction
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Public Enemies
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. Avatar
5. A Serious Man
Alternate: Bright Star

Best Cinematography
1. Avatar
2. Inglourious Basterds
3. The White Ribbon
4. Nine
5. The Hurt Locker
Alternate: Where the Wild Things Are

Best Costumes
1. Nine
2. Sherlock Holmes
3. The Young Victoria
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Sherlock Holmes
Alternate: Bruno

Best Editing
1. Avatar
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Up in the Air
5. District 9
Alternate: Precious

Best Makeup
1. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
2. Star Trek
3. District 9
Alternate: The Road

Best Sound Mixing
1. Avatar
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Star Trek
4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
5. Inglourious Basterds
Alternate: District 9

Best Sound Editing
1. Avatar
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Star Trek
4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
5. District 9
Alternate: Inglourious Basterds

Best Score
1. Avatar
2. Sherlock Holmes
3. A Serious Man
4. Public Enemies
5. Up
Alternate: Coco Before Chanel

Best Song
1. The Weary King – Crazy Heart
2. Cinema Italiano – Nine
3. I See You – Avatar
4. You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger – An Education
5. I Want To Come Home – Everybody’s Fine
Alternate: Stu’s Song – The Hangover

Best Visual Effects
1. Avatar
2. District 9
3. Star Trek
Alternate: Where the Wild Things Are

This is…this is hilarious. And also going to be airing on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and all that jazz.

Keeps getting removed everywhere online, but I think we’re safe.

It took me quite a while to notice this, and that’s kind of sad.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Let that sink in.

Upon further reflection and actually forcing myself to watch Delgo, there’s no case here. But the internet lollercaust caused by bloggers like myself over the comparisons between the biggest animated flop of all time and James Cameron’s Avatar were apparently taken seriously enough for these guys, looking for someone to curb the 40 million + loss they’re getting from their big steampile of fail. Oh, and this means they’re suing 20th Century Fox, the guys putting out their movie on DVD. Oopsie.

While looking for an image for this, I also found a much more fitting comparison to Delgo, one that is quite true and the filmmakers of this film should simultaneously sue Delgo’s filmmakers for stealing their movie. And that, is the creators of Doogal. From The AV Club.

The press release from those “filmmakers”:
From what we have seen, we are amazed by the visual similarities between the two films and we are reviewing what legal options may be available to us. Delgo is an independent film that took over a decade from conception to release. The initial proof-of-concept was available on Delgo.com in 1998 with work-in-progress from the feature production accessible via the website’s Digital Dailies since 2000. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Avatar began production in 2006 after a rewrite of the script.

Oh, and if the Na’vi could teleport, I’d expect Marvel to be in on this too. Cause they’re blue, and stuff.

Says Jim Cameron, in a quote about his lack of knowledge about Twitter. My intense cynicism 24 hours ago about Avatar had me saying this quite a bit about him, as his “groundbreaking vision” seemed to be instantly comparable to Delgo and Battle for Terra. Seeing it in IMAX 3D changed these preconceptions, but after seeing more and more images like the one I posted down the page, I don’t know what to think at this point. I feel bad for whoever watched Delgo long enough to get all these shots, but it’s just awesome how the two sync up like The Hangover and Dude Where’s My Car. It still looks awesome, but now I’m just being a mocking jerk. And I love it this way. Also, doesn’t my new logo-ish thing just fit so damn well with the rest of the site and it’s snarky hipster nihilism?

Possibly failing tests today aside and having a slight cold aside, there’s few things that could have gone better than today, for a variety of reasons. After watching the Avatar trailer had cooled over from yesterday, I was just about convinced to the extremes of my original moderate stance that it looked very close to the mo-cap failures that Robert Zemeckis seems so infatuated with, as he’s done it with his last three and possibly fourth film, The Yellow Submarine. That said, I saw plenty of potential that could possibly be fixed seeing it on something bigger and with a larger depth of field than my 24 inch monitor in 1080p. The people I showed the trailer to outside of the interweb shared much more vitriolic and one-sided responses, calling it the token “gay” and “those cat people look so fake” responses that one would expect no matter what when there’s blue alien things running around.

So then I drag one of them into a big long line to my (fake) IMAX screen. None of the Arizona theaters playing the film had it in those “real” IMAXes, which are just so much better, but to the credit of “fake” IMAX, if you’ve never been to the really good one, then you don’t know what you’re missing, because this thing is still quite beautiful. The clips that we were shown were predominantly action sequences on Na’vi with no human bodies present, except for the first two, shot interior and not really impressive in any way other than the fact that you’re seeing it in 3D, and it looks gorgeous. What looks digital in regards to human scenes on the Quicktime trailer look completely fluid here; the depth of field enhancement with the new dimension to work with adds so much to Cameron’s shots. It’s quite clear that this film will suffer big time on a 2D screen, but will work fine on RealD or fake IMAX or real IMAX. More on that specific point later.

The first two scenes shown are extended parts of the trailer that we see. Worthington arrives and Stephen Lang talks in a very morbid fashion to his soldiers. The memorable quote of the exchange is “It is my job to keep you alive. I can’t do my job.” I likely butchered the living hell out of that quote, forgive me. This leads to Worthington throwing his legs into the machine and being mighty stubborn to Sigourney Weaver and co., obviously showing that he’s the loose cannon who doesn’t play by the rules. Then after that, we just have Na’vi fight scene after Na’vi fight scene that shows him as a loose cannon who gets himself into mighty big predicaments and Zoe Saldana kicks major ass. It got mighty repetitive towards the end but seeing visuals from the trailer that looked mighty lame in 3D and in a way that allows them to breathe for a second, what looked like Robert Zemeckis’ Delgo looked far better. It’s still CG, it still plays the part, but Cameron definitely creates a world here. I didn’t have the best seat in the house, as that was for the press and I still haven’t got my credentials (the 1,000 of you who read this site daily better call bullshit on this one), but the time just flew by as these action scenes, while all stacked together got repetitive, to be sure, but I was so fixated upon the visual spectacle and how it contrasts with that Quicktime abomination that I was to the point of utter entrancement.

I have plenty of little nagging issues though. The dialogue, never really a strong suit for Cameron sans True Lies, is in short supply but what is there is just terrible. It sounds like video game dialogue, but since we were being shown just a big visual spectacle, I guess I get that. Sam Worthington showed quite a bit more chops in Terminator Salvation than he did in these 15 minutes of a two and a half hour film, so I just said this last sentence with no real meaning behind it. While the incredible silliness and Delgo-y-ness of the trailer is given so much more than one would ever expect, they’re still badly designed and far too synthetic for their own good. These creatures still have this glossy fake look to them, like Jar Jar Binks except far more tolerable and badass in nature.

So after watching that and walking into Inglourious Basterds (AMC gave me matinee priced tickets and a free large popcorn, go them), immediately seeing the Avatar trailer in 35mm 2D. It doesn’t look terrible as the Quicktime trailer did, but after JUST seeing all these shots in IMAX 3D, I just can’t imagine this having any of the impact that it does in 3D. Cameron made this film carte-blanche in 3D and really couldn’t care less about any other format, but the fact still remains that most people will see this film in a far inferior form than it should be seen in. It can’t be replicated at home, as 1080p on my brother’s 42 inch Hitachi apparently is just as bad as my 22 inch monitor. It can’t match up in a 2D theater, as it looked much better than the trailer on the computer, but shots like the dragon pulling the soldier out of the helicopter in the trailer look okay in 2D, while in 3D it’s a truly mindblowing shot to the point where I am still a little perplexed that they’re the same shot. But before I get to Basterds…

I walk out of the theater and see 3TV/GetOut’s resident movie critic Craig Outhier interviewing folks and being the whore that I am, loitered around. I wasn’t really able to juxtapose my thoughts yet, so my willingness to get interviewed was a tad misguided, as my answers to the questions presented were not nearly as elegant as they probably should have been, and only about 85% genuine, but seeing Craig again after going to see him with my grandfather in November 2004 was cool, for me. He quite enjoyed the guy’s reviews, and I was angry because that funny looking Jimmy Fallon movie that I hadn’t seen yet got a big stinkin’ F from him. Seeing it later on cable has now made me realize that Taxi is just as terrible as he suggested. I should have listened, but youngsters don’t do that. Ever. So yeah, when that ends up online or I see it on television, whatever’s left of it and aired, if anything, I’ll make sure to post it online and make sure you never forget that I’m on local news. Meanwhile, semi-friend of postAvant got on the news too in Wellington. I’ll post that one now. He’s the fluttery one.

So, Inglourious Basterds. Well, can’t give Quentin Tarantino any jabs for keeping to his same old schtick. Sure, he still can’t get enough of Grindhouse and Sergio Leone homages, and focuses far more time on Leni Riefenstahl then anyone else in the theater could have possibly even noticed or cared about, but his ability to craft dialogue of so many different cultures and languages and character types after years of being ridiculed for writing brilliant dialogue with the inevitable backlash over all his characters sounding the same. He cranked up the ambition to 11 this time. He mostly succeeds. The film has a problem with staying somewhere too long, as there are only about five or six actual scenes in the movie, padded with what seems like hours of dialogue, but it’s intertwined just well enough to work, with the exception of one particular scene that everyone seems to love involving schnapps and the number three that suffers from the Leslie Mann’s House effect. The film manages to pull off its obscure structure, large amounts of subtitles, etc. while also being able to keep mainstream audiences entertained with a nice curveball every twenty minutes or so. My audience seemed to like it a great deal, as Brad Pitt pulls off a southern bastard who ain’t got no humanity, puns intended tenfold and Christoph Waltz, just about completely unknown to most in the theater, hell, pretty much unknown to me as well before the buzz over his performance made me aware of him, just completely nail everything. The audience loved it and overall, they applauded throughout and at the end too.

The film isn’t starring Brad Pitt but it’s also not starring Melanie Laurent either as some have told me. It really works as a four main character ensemble, with Pitt, Laurent, Waltz and Diane Kruger as the main four with Eli Roth filling the shoes of the sixth fifth man. The way it all comes together is just tops, as in the age where every film has “a twist you’ll never see coming”, whether it be 33-year-old dwarf hookers or some shit with Steve Zahn in Hawaii that I don’t care to know the spoilers of, this is really the best way something like this could ever end. I rather unfairly compared the end of this film to Public Enemies, as the half hour long movie theater scene in the 30s and 40s in this one is about 80x better in Basterds then that of PE. Why am I saying this? Because I joked to my brother about this, not really taking myself seriously, until he said, “Well, Public Enemies didn’t totally rape history.” Sorry for the spoiler, but you should be able to tell that Basterds definitely isn’t being historically relevant to any universe other than the one where The Bear Jew is the father of the producer in True Romance. I then caught his alley oop and commented on the fact that Public Enemies isn’t much more true to the facts than Basterds is to World War 2.

I can’t say much without ruining what really makes Basterds Basterds, but yes, Quentin does it again. He makes an 8/10 film like every other he’s made except for that misfire that was Death Proof. Flawed, but awesome as all hell and deserving of THE CAPS LOCK THAT JON KNAPP WILL BE VERY ANGRY THAT THIS WHOLE ARTICLE IS NOT IN.

Yeah. Who can I talk to about that damn press pass?

The fact that so many comparisons to the most audacious animated failure to ever crash and burn at the box office can be made to Avatar, at least the trailer, makes this that no matter how great the fifteen minutes I see of it tonight are, I can’t get this out of my head. I mean, it’s just tops. Delgo was last year’s (and every year getting to around 2001) Gooby!

Well, I don’t even know what to think about this one. I was expecting something underwhelming in the way of not being nearly as revolutionary or different from the rest of the big-budget mold, and boy am I wrong. I’ve never seen anything like this before. However, what I saw in 1080p on my 20” monitor, looked like Robert Zemeckis remaking my own personal most infamous disaster of animation, Delgo, the ten year old film that released in theaters last year only to have the worst ultra-saturated wide release gross ever. I watched it in 1080p, and everything looked like I was watching Beowulf with aliens. There’s two things I can get from that, that on a big IMAX 3D screen, this will be the most amazing looking movie ever ever ever ever, or this thing is going to be one of the most catastrophic WTF moments to happen in my personal experiences. But seeing alien Sam Worthington in a room of humans was just…just weird. All the alien stuff just looked…bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it, and Cameron definitely wasn’t shitting me there, but…this is hardly a live-action movie anymore. And this trailer certainly isn’t going to put asses in seats.

Don’t watch this trailer on Youtube, watch it in the highest resolution you possibly can, thus I’m linking it in 1080p. Click the image below.

Watch it before it gets deleted.

Get ‘em while they’re hot. Link below.

http://www.avatarmovie.com/ticketing/

That said, you can see 15 minutes of the damn thing on the 21st, but still, cool?