Ones to Watch: VIVmag’s Oscar Night Picks

Oscar front-runner Kathryn Bigelow recently won another directing award for "The Hurt Locker" at the Orange British Academy Film Awards.

We love a good underdog story, which is why we’ll be glued to ABC this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET to see The Hurt Locker’s Kathryn Bigelow take on ex-husband James Cameron, director of the $700-million-grossing Avatar, for the Best Director statuette at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

A little-known Oscar fact: In its first 81 years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences saw exactly three women nominated in the Best Director category — Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties, 1975), Jane Campion (The Piano, 1993) and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, 2003). None of these directors took home the prize on Oscar night, but we believe Bigelow, 58, will make history this year on the strength of her little-seen ($14 million domestic gross) war drama.

Set in 2004, The Hurt Locker follows an American explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) unit through the last days of a year-long tour of duty in Iraq. The team’s mission: Find improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and defuse them — easier said than done when enemies abound and the soldier in charge (Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner) is an adrenaline junkie on the verge of a mental collapse.

If war seems like an odd subject for a female director to explore, keep in mind that Bigelow has spent the past quarter-century defying expectations. In 1987, she directed Near Dark, a vampire tale set in Oklahoma that did poorly upon initial release but has developed a cult following over the years. Bigelow followed Near Dark with Blue Steel (1989), a postmodern-at-the-time detective thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and Point Break (1991), a testosterone-soaked actioner featuring Patrick Swayze as a bank-robbing surfer and Keanu Reeves as his FBI foil. Though subsequent films (1995’s Strange Days and 2002’s K-19: The Widowmaker) would prove disappointing from a commercial standpoint, they nevertheless served to cement Bigelow’s reputation as a female director unafraid to play with the boys.

Bigelow’s work on The Hurt Locker marks yet another break with convention. Rather than taking the macro approach to storytelling typical of so many war films, Bigelow (working from a script by journalist Mark Boal) focuses instead on the psychology of those who — for whatever reason — find themselves in harm’s way. And though it has all the hallmarks of a traditional action film, The Hurt Locker relies more on emotional tension than Hollywood pyrotechnics for dramatic effect. Whether this approach was necessitated by the film’s minuscule budget ($11 million — a far cry from the estimated $237 million spent on Avatar) or was simply the product of a woman’s touch is debatable. Whatever the case, the result is a jarring study of modern war from a soldier’s perspective.

Cynics will call Bigelow’s directing win on Oscar night a blatant PR move, an apology of sorts for 80-plus years of gender bias. They will be wrong. Bigelow has already collected every other directorial award worth having this season (sorry, but the Golden Globes are a joke), and for good reason: She made the most thought-provoking, technically adept and suspenseful film of 2009. But in the Oscar afterglow, one valid question will remain: Are male-oriented films a female director’s only hope to win an Academy Award?

Other Oscar locks:

Sandra Bullock, Best Actress for The Blind Side
We’re hesitant to call this a true lock, but Bullock has several things going for her this year: Her most serious competitor, Meryl Streep, already has two Oscar wins under her belt; she single-handedly turned The Blind Side into the highest-grossing sports movie of all time; and her career resurgence rivals that of John Travolta.

Mo’Nique, Best Supporting Actress for Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
Like Bigelow, Mo’Nique has already picked up some serious hardware this awards season. Look for her to win because her co-star, Best Actress nominee Gabourey Sidibe, won’t with Bullock and Streep in the running.

Jeff Bridges, Best Actor for Crazy Heart
Aside from Streep, Bridges is the closest thing to Hollywood royalty at this year’s Oscars. He’s a veteran actor, he’s likable and he’s been denied on four previous Oscar tries. Pretty much a done deal.

Christoph Waltz, Best Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds
Never mind that this Austrian was a virtual unknown six months ago. In Quentin Tarantino’s World War II epic, Waltz acts circles around the likes of Brad Pitt and charms us into forgetting his character is a murderous Nazi psychopath.

Do you agree with our Oscar picks? Tell us below!

Photo credit: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

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