Awards season is by far the best time of year for a movie fan. Not only is it an opportunity to see stars and directors in their finest, it’s an opportunity to experience the best (popular) movies of 2009.

My first experience with Oscar was in 2005. Being an overly overt fan of Finding Neverland, I would slam front runner Million Dollar Baby amongst friends and family. Of course after seeing Million Dollar Baby, I admit my narrow mindedness as it is a far superior film.

This morning, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. I will try to pilot the major categories as best as I can to give an idea of what to expect on March 7th, 2010.

Best Picture

It is hard to gauge where voters will steer this ship. In an unexpected move, the Academy moved the nominee number to 10 this year. This pegs for a wide variety of material and target audience. Avatar and Inglorious Basterds should get pre-hype as they have captured other organization awards. Avatar took home the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama while Basterds received the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture award from the Screen Actors Guild. In order to round out the top five, I would bet on The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, and The Blind Side being favorites.

On to who will win. As Hollywood loves money, Avatar would be the best pick. But as history shows, Hollywood doesn’t always love the hype (a la Brokeback Mountain). Avatar isn’t a great movie (it isn’t really even good) therefore I believe the field is open. A quirky comedy like Up in the Air could finally bring home an Oscar for Jason Reitman (missed on Juno and snubbed on Thank You For Smoking). The Hurt Lockercould potentially be this years Crash, an indie drama about bomb technicians in Iraq. The Blind Side has be known to be a motivating, tear jerking drama that showed the acting chops of notoriously bad Sandra Bullock. Even the animated (lovely) favorite from Pixar, Up, could potentially garner enough voters.

Who will win: I believe Hollywood rewards Avatar as it is the most popular choice

Who should win: Up in the Air or Inglorious Basterds were phenom films of 2009.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Subcategories are much easier to predict as the field is generally narrowed to four or five. Jeremy Renner was wonderful to watch in The Hurt Locker, a gung-ho American bomb technician in Iraq (although I couldn’t help draw comparisons to his military portrayal in 28 Weeks Later). Morgan Freeman was bland in Ivictus and for further explanation, my review of the movie can be found on this blog. I haven’t seen A Single Man (Colin Firth) and George Clooney (Up in the Air) is always the Oscar darling (received nominations in 2006 and 2007). With the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) as guidance, I believe it is safe to put money on Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. Yes, I believe The Dude, Bridges character in The Big Lebowski, will win come March 7th.

Who Will Win: Jeff Bridges

Who Should Win: George Clooney. I haven’t seen Crazy Heart but Clooney was enjoyable in Up in the Air.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

It is a rarity to find an award that Meryl Streep is nominated for and not expected to win. Sandra Bullock’s sweep of the Golden Globe and SAG categories should propel her to Oscar stardom. I don’t believe Carey Mulligan will capture enough voters for her An Education performance and while Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) might be too fresh (first motion picture role) for the award. While Helen Mirren was rewarded for her role in The Queen, Bullock will prevail.

Who Will Win: Unfortunately, Keanu’s sidekick (Speed) will win this year.

Who Should Win: Probably Sandra Bullock. I haven’t seen The Blind Side and I will refrain from knocking it too hard, but it’s Sandra Bullock.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

The Lovely Bones failed to capture the hype it had a year ago. Peter Jackson’s followup to King Kong won’t bring him the record love LOTR: Return of the King did. I predict then that Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) will rest at the bottom with Woody Harrelson (The Messenger) and Christopher Plummer (The Last Station). While Matt Damon was inspiring in Invictus, it’s still Invictus. All signals point to Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds. Speaking four languages while taking on the controversial role of a rewarded Nazi SS was magnificent.

Who Will Win: Christoph Waltz

Who Should Win: No one other than Christoph Waltz

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

This category is a bit more muddled than Best Actress. The leading ladies of Up in the Air (Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick) will probably cancel each other out. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s nod was greeted as a surprise and that leaves Penelope Cruz (Nine) and Mo’nique (Precious) as the frontrunners. The Academy does like musicals which could propel Ms. Cruz above Mo’nique but, I expect that Mo’nique ultimately wins as she took home both Golden Globe and SAG awards.

Who Will Win: Mo’nique

Who Should Win: After staring in Phat Girlz and Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, this is an unexpected turnaround.

Best Animated Feature Film

I enjoyed Fantastic Mr. Fox and the return to 2D animation by Disney was welcomed with The Princess and the Frog, an Up upset would be shocking.

Who Will Win: Up

Who Should Win: Up…again

Best Original Screenplay

This category should be decided between The Hurt Locker (Mark Boal) and Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino). Up deserves the recognition and any Coen Bros. work (A Serious Man) is sure to not disappoint. Rounding out the category is Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman for The Messenger. All in all, this one could go anywhere.

Who Will Win: I will go out on a limb and say Up. Moving and popular, this touched all ages.

Who Should Win: I enjoyed Hurt Locker but much of the movie was placed on acting and I believe the vulgarity of Inglorious Basterds might drive a few voters away.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner will almost surely win this category for their work in Up in the Air. Although An Education and Precious could prove to be dark horses, I suspect District 9 and In the Loop to provide little competion

Who Will Win: Up in the Air

Who Should WIn: Up in the Air

Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron

Best Director

Interestingly enough James Cameron (Avatar) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) were former lovebirds. I believe Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) will be rewarded for screenplay instead of directing and Tarantino (Basterds) and Lee Daniels (Precious) should be on the outside looking in.

Who Will Win: James Cameron if voters want to see another “I’m the king of the world” proclamation (see Cameron’s Oscar acceptance speech for Titanic) or Bigelow if voters want to pick someone deserving of the award.

Who Should Win: Kathryn Bigelow

Odds and Ends

Since I have hit all of the major categories, I will offer some minor predictions for the smaller awards. I suspect Avatar to sweep Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. Sound mixing will likely be between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Up and Avatar will compete for Best Original Score and I suspect Best Sound Mixing will be another dog fight between The Hurt Locker and Avatar.

One is the story of a paralyzed former marine who finds himself in the middle of a conflict between humans and aliens over mineral rights that is quickly spiraling towards genocide with humans as the aggressors; the other is a fairytale about transformation and romance. On the surface James Cameron’s Avatar, a 3D spectacle described most frequently as “epic” and Disney’s first classically animated feature in five years, The Princess and the Frog, may seem to have very little in common besides being highly anticipated films that have taken the top slots at the box office. Unfortunately when explored more deeply it becomes apparent that both have issues concerning racial inequality and how we understand it that hover just beneath the surface and go unexplored. Yet on the positive they both espouse the need for balance in life, a sentiment most decidedly expressed in the relationship between men and women and their roles within the story.

Considering how blatantly Avatar deals with one species attacking and attempting to dominate another, saying that there are issues concerning how we understand racial inequality might seem odd. To understand what is being said here, let us first consider that science fiction as a genre has long been seen as particularly metaphoric in terms of understanding the self and other, typically with the self represented by humans and the “other” embodied in the form of the alien. Often this has specifically been equated to issues of race, in ways remaining highly problematic as the self is generally presented as being white with the alien(s) being understood to represent minorities. This is the problem within Avatar. The Na’vi, who are the ten foot tall, bipedal, feline-like natural inhabitants of the planet Pandora, upon which the movie takes place, are shown to be a wholly altruistic people who are unable to understand the true motives of the mining corporation attacking them and ultimately can only be lead effectively against this corporation by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the former marine mentioned above who is taking part in the avatar program, which mentally links humans to human-Na’vi hybrids in an attempt to create a deeper understanding and connection between the two peoples. Jake, who initially comes into contact with the Na’vi with absolutely no understanding of them, ultimately proves to be their savior, therefore showing, perhaps unintentionally, that some white, male, human makes a better Na’vi than a real Na’vi does.

As an isolated incident in Hollywood this might not be an issue but considering the tendency of this scenario to crop up again and again, it is fair to say this is an issue in the film. While the Na’vi are highly sympathetic but also shown to be powerful and wise, with James Cameron having directly stated that the Na’vi were intended to represent the better part of ourselves, this attempt to make them cheer-worthy leads to their becoming horribly two dimensional and flat, which is probably the greatest failing of the film.

While these issues might be arguable in terms of Avatar, those within The Princess and the Frog have garnered attention even preceding the film’s release. Set in 1920’s New Orleans the movie tells the story of Disney’s first African American princess, Tiana, and her struggle to achieve her dream of opening her own restaurant. As per usual Disney had on their rose-colored glasses in making this film. Although it would be nice to imagine a world as pleasant as that depicted in the movie, Disney conveniently ignores the problems of segregation and racism that plagued the U.S. at the time the movie takes place. Instead a picture of harmony is presented in which only the vaguest hints of reality peek through in the form of a clear distinction between white and black neighborhoods and an offhand comment—which on the surface is about economic standing but could potentially read in racial terms as well—made to Tiana by one of the realtors from whom she is trying to buy her future restaurant.

One might also point out that the movie’s villain, Dr. Facilier, is an African American man who is attempting to take control of New Orleans from its most prominent resident, Big Daddy La Bouf, whose wealth, while not directly explained, is hinted to have come from either the sugar or cotton industry. Suffice it to say that Dr. Facilier eventually fails in this attempt. However, in Disney’s defense it should be noted that the filmmakers seemed to have actively tried to avoid or correct some of the issues connected to the film. For example, while Dr. Facilier is shown to use voodoo to bewitch and swindle his victims, Mama Odie uses voodoo to help those around her. Also, in the end, Dr. Facilier is not overcome by being “put in his place” but instead by Tiana’s decision to choose love over greed which results in Dr. Facilier’s spell being broken allowing his “friends on the other side” to take him as payment for his debts.

Where both films stumble in terms of how racial conflict is understood, oppositely they excel in their depiction of women, an action which serves to convey a message of the importance of balance. In Avatar we learn upon meeting the Na’vi that they are a patriarchal society in structure but not in such fashion that discredits or ignores the importance of the female Na’vi. In fact the society is shown to be co-ruled by a male civic leader and a female spiritual leader. This spiritual leadership is nothing to be taken lightly as the Na’vi are an extremely spiritual people who commune directly with their planet and its other inhabitants, as well as having a deep spiritual bond to their goddess Aywa, whose power is eventually proven scientifically by Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). Also within Na’vi culture males and females are able to take up the same jobs and roles with many of the warriors and hunters, who fly the dangerous banshee, being female.

These roles are both exhibited by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) the young Na’vi woman who brings Jake Sully to the Na’vi and eventually forms a deep and romantic relationship with him. Neytiri is depicted as a fierce and formidable warrior with a deep spiritual connection to Aywa and her people. When the civic leader, Neytiri’s father, dies during an assault on the Na’vi she is the one to receive his bow, a weapon she eventually kills the film’s central antagonist with.

Another way in which the Na’vi are shown to be superior to the humans comes from this balance between male and female. When Jake convinces the Na’vi to gather in order to strike back against the humans, Neytiri rides out with him on his mount at the head of the warriors. At first this may look like yet another damsel tagging along on the back of the saddle—after all, Neytiri does have her own mount—but what is really going on is a reinforcement of balance. Here Jake is not leading the Na’vi alone, with Neytiri riding with him it is a joint venture and they are both leading The People; as Jake flies Neytiri cries out encouraging her people and calling them onward.

When the importance of female Na’vi within their society becomes clear it also illuminates the lack of women on the human side. Throughout the film only two human women become somewhat prominent: Dr. Grace Augustine and Trudy Chacon (Michelle Rodriguez) and ultimately both choose the side of the Na’vi when war breaks out. Very few other women can be spotted amongst the ranks of the humans and none are obvious along the front lines. The situation this creates is one in which the “bad” guys are a society without balance and the “good” people are in balance. A similar argument has been made about the Empire and Rebel Allience in the original Star Wars trilogy, although Avatar does this more obviously.

What about The Princess and the Frog then? Disney has long been debated concerning its princesses and their depictions. In the 90’s during the Disney Renaissance it became clear several times that the company was attempting to make its female characters more than just damsels in distress or heartsick romantics with one of the strongest examples being Belle from Beauty and the Beast who ultimately saves the prince instead of being saved, although yet again her happy ending was to fall in love. Tiana becomes something new. Not only is Tiana’s dream to be a business owner but any romantic bones in her body are completely focused on the restaurant and not some prince. Instead the typical princess dreams are left to her friend Charlotte. Despite dreaming of nothing but true love and prince charming, Charlotte never becomes stale. She, like Tiana—who snores and is far from perfect—has her own realistic moments where she sweats too much, has to redo her make-up and readjusts her dress like any teenage girl might adjust a strapless top. Not to mention that while she is terribly spoiled, Charlotte is not selfish and never fails to be kind to others.

Unlike most other Disney princes who are non-entities or innocent diamonds in the rough, Prince Naveen is a flawed, ladies man who is as focused on play as Tiana is on work. During their time together as frogs the two each learn to appreciate a little of what the other offers. In falling in love with Tiana, Naveen comes to understand the value of hard work and discovers what it is like to want to make sacrifices in order to make a loved one happy. Naveen is even the first to make these gestures. For her part Tiana comes to realize that a single-minded determination to have a business may cost her what should be just as important, love. Thus when Naveen is willing to marry Charlotte in order for Tiana and himself to become human again and for Tiana to get the money for her restaurant, Tiana finds that her dream of having her business can only really become true if Naveen is a part of it. While the film progresses to the typical Disney wedding of Prince and (now) princess, the real happy ending of the movie comes when the two are able to open the restaurant together through sharing the work and not by any deus ex machina in the form of Naveen’s wealthy family.

The need for balance between love/play and work expressed by Tiana and Naveen are not the only examples within the film. As mentioned before where we see Dr. Facilier use voodoo for bad, Mama Odie uses it for good. This is also another of the more unique points of The Princess and the Frog. Whereas Disney has traditionally had female villains, an occurrence that possibly stems from Disney’s tendency to make its antagonists a mirror of its protagonists thus having female villains for its female leads and male villains for its male leads, The Princess and the Frog is one of the rare examples of a female protagonist paired against a male villain.

Disney also works to balance how the side characters are understood as well. Shortly after meeting Ray the Cajun firefly and his extended family, who at first would seem a mean parody as most of them are missing teeth or look a little dimwitted, a trio of Hillbillies appear, causing havoc. After seeing the good-natured spirit of the fireflies who work together to guide Tiana and Naveen and who clearly have close family ties, the overly violent and uncooperative Hillbillies make it clear that while the fireflies might be a little backwoods, they are definitely to be admired and not to be thought poorly of.

Despite their problems, both Avatar and The Princess and the Frog present their viewers with positive messages about the treatment of others and the need for balance in our personal lives as well as within our societies. While neither is your typical award fare and are ultimately intended as primarily entertainment pieces, their ability to send such messages presents us with two prime examples of how entertainment does not have be dimwitted or without moral.