10 Oscar Predictions!

Not necessarily movie related.

1. Anne Hathaway and James Franco will have no less than five hilariously awkward co-host moments, probably relating to the fact that they're both tremendously beautiful people who aren't used to sharing the limelight. One of these will be a song-and-dance routine, in which Neil Patrick Harris will have a cameo. (Can we please just have him host next year? God, he would be SO GREAT.)

2. Anne Hathaway's dress will be Marchesa on the red carpet, but she will go through at least three costume changes. Probably more - one for every time she's on stage. (I really, really desire this to be true.)

3. There will be at least one 127 Hours joke made, but probably not by Franco. I'm betting on Ben Stiller, who needs something HUGE to top that Na'vi horror show he put on last year. I'm thinking fake blood and a ruined designer suit.

4. Hailee Steinfeld will look adorable, and will win Best Supporting Actress. It will be a fashion victory for all members of the Dakota Fanning School for Starlets. She and Jeff Bridges will probably have an awesome red carpet moment, where he gets to be fatherly and wise and she gets to be endearingly nervous.

5. Colin Firth will win Best Actor. Helena Bonham Carter will not win, but her dress will look like it walked off the set of Alice in Wonderland (which will then win Best Costuming). After his win the camera will pan to Geoffrey Rush, who will then get a shout-out from Firth for their historical bromance.

6. Rooney Mara will not be attending because of her costuming for Dragon Tattoo. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield will be there, in tremendously adorable slim-cut suits, and (PLEASE GOD) they will pose on the carpet with Trent Reznor (who will then win for Best Original Score, a comprise a replay of what happened when "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" won Best Song for Hustle & Flow).

7. Toy Story 3 will win Best Animated Film and it will break my heart. (Seriously. Pixar must have an entire room for their statuettes by now. How To Train Your Dragon was better, Academy. They were both good, but Dragon was better. Please, please show me that you can be innovative and recognize artistic achievement that's not just a creature of habit. PLEASE.)

8. Benicio del Toro will be in attendance, but The Wolfman will not win Best Makeup (even though it SHOULD, oh my GOD, it was BRILLIANT). He will probably look strikingly like a werewolf.

9. Inception will not win any awards except technical ones, because the Academy has forgotten how to recognize truly brilliant science fiction. Leonardo DiCaprio may not even show up, but Christopher Nolan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will look dapper and gracious and (hopefully) shame the Academy so that they think harder about their Director nominees next year. Marion Cotillard might get a red carpet moment with Nolan, and I hope she wears a dress like that white mermaid thing she wore when she won for La Vie En Rose.

10. The following women will be fashion disasters and I will love every minute of it: Cameron Diaz, Kristen Stewart (if she gets an invite this year - unless she's presenting, she might not even go), Hilary Swank, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Ellen Page (I want her to look awesome SO BAD, but her history is against her). The following women will look AMAZING: Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Anna Kendrick, and Melissa Leo.

True Grit, or, Jeff Bridges is Awesome

True Grit is a movie made up of pieces, which never quite come together to form a coherent whole. While each of its stars, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and the charming Hailee Steinfeld, are great in their own roles, the roles themselves almost feel like they’re from three very different films – like the Coen Brothers couldn’t decide what kind of movie they were making.

Jeff Bridges, as the whiskey-soaked, gravelly Rooster Cogburn, hasn’t been this entertaining to watch since his turn as the Dude in another Coen Brothers piece. His performance is so gritty (if you’ll forgive my using the phrase) it almost leaves sand in your mouth – he’s rough, tough, and way past his prime. Watching him is like remembering the golden era of Western film, reminiscent of the gun-toting outlaws and town defending sheriffs. But he’s old, too, and more heart-breaking in his way than the tale of Mattie’s vengeance for her wrongfully slain father.

Let’s talk about Mattie: I don’t know where the Coens found Steinfeld, but she’s a treasure in this movie and I look forward to seeing her in future projects. Her Mattie Ross is self-possessed and righteous, quoting the law at anyone she perceives as standing wrongfully in her way. Her “good lawyer” back home does not feature bodily in the film, but pops up in almost all of her conversation. Steinfeld successfully brings to life Mattie’s precociousness and also her own illusions; that is, that wrongs will always be brought to right, and that the law will always triumph. Mattie has to learn some hard lessons about preconceived notions and, more importantly, about the way that people really work, but Steinfeld makes her believable.

Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger, Mr. LaBoeuf, is the wrong note in the film. I’ve never seen the original True Grit, so I don’t know how he played out in that version, but here LaBoeuf is played (wrongfully, I think) for laughs. He is too tight, too formal, too absurd. Damon is excellent in the role, but the role is wrong for the film.

That is the weak point of True Grit: it can’t decide if it wants to be serious, or if it wants to be absurd. And rather than becoming a serious film with moments of humor, it ends up as an emotionally weak film with moments of awkwardness. I never really felt the immediacy of Mattie’s problem; I was never invested in seeing her father’s killer brought to justice. The dialogue, which is mostly very smart, does distance the audience by occasionally becoming comically flat or tremendously melodramatic - no one uses contractions ("This scheme did not unfold like I had planned;" after cutting down a hanged man, "I do not know this man."). For a film all about family and justice and revenge, True Grit itself fell a little comically flat.