It would certainly make sense to see Paul Greengrass among shoo-ins like Steve McQueen and Alfonso Cuarón.
Subtlety isn’t a quality that dignifies the nominees in this category.
The surefire frontrunners are Kathryn Bigelow, Ben Affleck, and Steven Spielberg.
Consider Bigelow a virtual lock, tightening up the Best Director field alongside Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Ben Affleck, and, perhaps, Tom Hooper or David O. Russell.
The ad campaign for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty is all about the act of snuffing out.
The screenwriters are savvy enough to acknowledge that audiences have moved on from Ethan Hunt and the IMF.
In recent years, Academy members have repeatedly favored the most high-profile, buzzed-about doc in this category, from The Cove to Man on Wire to March of the Penguins.
Conventional wisdom says that one film wins both sound awards only about half the time.
In the five years since this category, which was previous known as Best Sound Effects, was bumped up from three to five nominations.
These are the winners at the 82nd Academy Awards.
This is a complete list of our predicted winners at the 2010 Academy Awards.
To hear everyone tell it, it’s all still going to boil down to a grudge match between Contender #1 and Contender #2, the same as it usually is.
The sound category that more often rewards nuance probably deserves a little bit more consideration than I gave to sound editing a few days ago.
We’re down to the wire, folks, and we’ve been saving some of the more contentious races for last.
Of the two sound categories, this is the one that favors artificially invented environments and sonic fabrications.
Don’t let the results of the WGA sway you too much. Quentin Tarantino, as a non-Guild member, was no more eligible for one of their awards than he is likely to be invited to spit punany poetry on a split bill with Maya Angelou.
When Up in the Air couldn’t swing a nomination in this category, the race for best picture suddenly became a little easier to diagnose.
Even the weakest of the bunch, James Horner’s predictable but atmospheric score for Avatar, doesn’t stir our bile beyond a simmer.
In short, not so much the People’s Choice Awards, just more of the same.
The Hurt Locker is generally very natural, with only a couple of scenes where you hear the clicking of the writer’s computer keyboard.