Others have chimed in on Tom O’Neil’s Inglourious Basterds story over at Gold Derby, including Pete Hammond, USA Today’s Susan Wloszczyna, The Wrap’s Steve Pond and Yours Truly. Here are a few quotes, but you can read them in full right here.
Hammond: “There’s also something to the fact that, if “The Hurt Locker” wins, it will be the lowest-grossing movie ever to do so.”
Wloszczyna: “I still think “The Hurt Locker” will win best picture. It affected me like few others this year. But I also believe that if any film has a chance to pull an upset, it’s going to be “Basterds” and not “Avatar.” For one, it amuses me to have a misspelled title winning best picture. For another, I keep hearing people say how much they like it — more than I did when it opened last summer.”
Pond: “I don’t buy the idea that the actors branch is a monolithic group that’s going to go for “Basterds” en masse. And I think the preferential system will help “Hurt Locker” more than it’ll help “Basterds,” which is hardly a consensus kind of movie. ”
Jeff Wells: “I’m also sensing that the Movie Godz, the aspirational angels of our nature, are feeling a wee bit antsy as we speak and have taken to hovering like Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander in “Wings of Desire” and intimating/whispering “don’t…don’t do this…not the baseball-bat movie … think of how you’ll feel the next morning ‚Ķ.”
And over at Cinematical, Erik Childress writes:
In one corner you have Harvey Weinstein saying that “we’re going to win Best Picture” in reference to Inglourious Basterds. In another you have Peter Guber on Fox making the argument that money could push Avatar over the top while being surprised that Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t nominated for Sherlock Holmes. Fox’s Oscar expert, ladies and gentlemen. Harvey and Peter might be in for a rude awakening on Oscar night though. At the time of their statements they didn’t have the benefit of a magic award that might just hold the very key to predicting Best Picture on March 7. It’s a vital category, one you can’t create film without. The Guild that represents them handed out their awards Sunday evening. And they may have just handed The Hurt Locker the Oscar for Best Picture.
Childress goes on, vis-a-vis the ACE Eddie:
Well, 14 of the last 29 films that won the Film Editing Oscar also won Best Picture. I agree, not very convincing. How about 11 of the last 19? That sound better? A tad at least over the 50/50 proposition given to the ACE’s Dramatic Editing award winning Best Picture since 1999. Throw Chicago winning over on the Comedy side and that is six of the last ten with ACE awarding the eventual victor. Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds are all in the running for the Editing Oscar. Of course, we are ignoring the bigger picture here.
The Hurt Locker has already won the Directors and Producers Guild Awards. Throw in its fresh ACE victory and the film is placed in very exclusive company. Since 1989, the inception of the Producers Guild Award, there have been eight films that have won these three awards:
Dances with Wolves, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Titanic, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Slumdog Millionaire
Maybe Mr. Guber and Mr. Weinstein might want to start marking The Hurt Locker for Best Picture in their Oscar pool. I certainly am.