Curious Oscar Prediction: 'Basterds' Wins Best Picture

Thursday

19Nov2009

Curious Oscar Prediction: 'Basterds' Wins Best Picture

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 12:25PM

I'm not quite ready to follow Gold Derby's logic when it claims that Inglourious Basterds will be the Best Picture winner at the Oscars. Sure, it's a prediction for the sake of making a prediction, but I don't think it's a stong case. I do think Basterds will likely get nominated, along with Quentin Tarantino for screenplay and possibly director, but the pieces of this theory aren't all coming together for me.

Tom O'Neill begins by claiming a stastical conclusion as an absolute, essentially that because the Best Director winner usually wins Best Picture it is just as likely to happen this year. Well, see, it's not a coin toss. There are five choices in every Best Director field and now there are twice as many Best Picture nominees for the first time in over half a century. So by definition, the rules have changed.

O'Neill goes on to handicap the Best Director race, which again, will only include up to half of the possibilities for Best Picture. He asserts that Jason Reitman for Up in the Air might win the Directors Guild award over Tarantino, which is as good an indicator of the Oscar as anything else. He counters that by wondering if Up in the Air can really win the Oscar for Best Picture, even if by his own logic, the DGA is almost a rubber stamp for the Academy's Best Director pick...which in turn should mean Best Picture.

Kathryn Bigelow gets mentioned and summarily dismissed for The Hurt Locker on the basis (in so many words) that no woman has ever won. But if that film takes home any award, I would believe that it's Best Director before Best Picture or Best Actor. One-offs like that happen from time to time, even if they're not the standard. In fact, it's occurred 36% of the time since 1998 (four out of eleven), but only twice in the 30 years before that. So if anything, the standard line about Best Director = Best Picture is less reliable now than ever, especially with twice as many Best Picture nominees.

I also think it's odd that Gold Derby lumps Eastwood, Jackson, and Rob Marshall together as "refried beans" because they've all been nominated (and Marshall, curiously, won Best Picture but not Best Director). Lee Daniels, who directed Precious is not really given much chance at all, however this could be the first year that an African-American and a woman are up for Best Director...and we all know how Oscar loves those storylines.

In short, I have no problem with QT being nominated, nor the film; I think it's his best work since Pulp Fiction. But I can't see much of an argument for him winning the DGA over Bigelow and Reitman head-to-head and/or the "refried beans" based on reputation and results. It's possible, sure, but even in the unlikely event that it happens (unlikely in the sense that with four other nominees and no front-runner, Tarantino has a less than 50% chance of winning), I can't make the leap to Best Picture based on that.

Colin Boyd |

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Reader Comments (2)

If momentum is going to build for Basterds it's got to start somewhere, but at this point I think that QT and crew have an uphill battle.

Thursday, November 19, 2009 |

Will

Think about it, if he wins, he just might shoot more movies per decade.

Friday, November 20, 2009 |

Tjei

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