Indiewire Polls and Various Others Take the Temperature

Peter Knegt at Indiewire polled 28 bloggers and critics in the what will win/what should win. I am kind of a stickler for pairing Picture and Director because I think if you like the movie enough to want it to win Best Pic then you should also reward the Director. To me it’s throwing the dog a bone if you don’t do it that way – but maybe that’s just me.¬†¬† You will find, though, that public polls are split. The ones with a more film-geek centric audience will always go for Basterds as their favorite. But the polls that hit the general public go for Avatar all of the way. The funny thing is that The Hurt Locker has a 94 Metacritic rating and yet the critics have, in these last months, wrapped their love around Basterds, oddly enough. Kind of makes you wonder why Basterds didn’t have a higher Metacritic rating.

Best Picture
Who Will Win: The “Avatar” or “The Hurt Locker” question got a clear answer from those polled: “The Hurt Locker” took 77% of the vote, while “Avatar” too 23%.

Who Should Win: It was much more spread out when it came to who folks thought deserved the big prize, with 30% saying “Inglourious Basterds”, 26% of the vote going to both “The Hurt Locker” and “A Serious Man,” and “Up,” “Up In The Air,” “Avatar,” “District 9” and “Precious” eaching taking a lone shout out.

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Actor: Bridges
Actress: Bullock/Gabby Sidibe
Supporting Actor: Waltz
Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique
Screenplay: The Hurt Locker/Basterds and A Serious Man
Animated: Up/Fantastic Mr. Fox
Foreign: The White Ribbon/A Prophet
Cinematography: Avatar/White Ribbon and Basterds
Art Direction: Avatar/Avatar

Meanwhile, over at the Hollywood Stock Exchange, it look like The Hurt Locker has finally pulled ahead of Avatar in the final days leading up to the Oscars. It’s close, though.¬† The rest are the usual suspects — Basters is ahead in Screenplay.

Meanwhile, over at IMDb, the poll results are very different.

Best Picture: Avatar with 33% of the votes, Basterds in second place with 22%, and The Hurt Locker in third, with 21%
Best Director: James Cameron with 35% of the vote, Bigelow with 32%
Actress: Sandra Bullock way ahead with 44% of the vote.
Actor: Jeff Bridges with 39% of the vote.
Supporting: Waltz, Mo’Nique
Foreign: The White Ribbon
Original Screenplay: Basterds way ahead with 55%
Adapted: District 9 way ahead with 41%
Animated: Up

I’m guessing the IMDb readers don’t read Oscar sites. We’ll see how they do when the Oscars are announced.

The Yahoo Movies poll results are:

Best Picture: Avatar with 42% of the vote
Best Director: Jim Cameron with 51% of the vote
Actor: Jeff Bridges
Actress: Sandra Bullock way ahead with 73% of the vote
Supporting: Christoph Waltz, Mo’Nique

What I find interesting about the public sentiment and the possibility of The Hurt Locker actually winning Best Picture is that this will undoubtedly be the year where the gap between the public and the Academy would have been at its widest. Maybe it was also this way in 1977 when Annie Hall beat Star Wars.  I know there is going to be disappointment either way. There is no winning this race. No matter what film wins, it will feel like it deserve to win.

I do feel a surge for Avatar here in the final moments, this idea of it’s just too big to ignore coming full circle. I am only predicting The Hurt Locker because I plan to go down with the ship. But honestly, how can Avatar lose?