Eighteen days until the Oscars. Excited yet? No? Well, how about this: A rundown of all ten Academy Award Best Picture nominees, in the order I saw them.

Up

Last year, many people were upset about Wall-E’s snub for a Best Picture nomination. I believe that reaction was a huge bump for 2009’s Pixar release and helped it secure a nom in 2010, although being a beautiful and touching film on its own didn’t hurt. Up is a story about friendship between a lonely and grumpy old man and a lonely and ambitious young Wilderness Explorer. A great adventure inspired by the old man’s loss of his darling wife leads the pair to the Amazon jungle, where they meet talking dogs, a strange new bird, and a trademark Disney villain, of course. Up gives you that warm, gooey feeling that Disney movies (and more specifically over the last decade, Pixar movies) are known for. Along with Up in the Air, I personally consider it part of the second-tier of Best Picture contenders, while the reality is the animate film doesn’t stand much chance at all. However, I’d certainly be pleased if this one could pull off the upset.

Avatar

Alright, James, you got me. I was skeptical of your half-billion-dollar mega-movie at first, but I went, I saw, and I was flabbergasted. Only you can tell such a grand story, rake in an absurd amount of money, and still be able to call the product a moving and socially beneficial film. Avatar wows you visually for nearly three hours, but like a painting that takes your breath away at first glance, it also has layers of meaning and importance below the surface of pretty pictures and colors. Hollywood might want to go in a different direction than last year when it gave the Best Picture Oscar to the little guy - Slumdog Millionaire. If so, nothing could be on the opposing end of the spectrum more than Avatar. If it wins, it would be a monumental statement for 3-D, an exceedingly utilized effect in Hollywood, showing it can offer more than just a schtick to put extra butts in the seats. I consider Avatar a front runner that will be difficult for any of the others to take down in this race.

Up in the Air

I have a crush on Jason Reitman movies. The fact that he was actually able to make you root for a lobbyist of big tobacco in Thank You for Smoking is a testament to his filmmaking abilities and his understanding of his audience. Up in the Air has a more serious tone than Smoking, which is probably why it received an Oscar nom in a world where comedies are often scorned, but it is still a comical look at a man who spends more time flying from place to place than getting his life together. He falls into a comfort zone as a constant traveler, logging millions of frequent flyer miles with American Airlines and enjoying all the perks that go with such loyal consumerism, but he realizes that a window may have closed to both be a good family man and, more importantly, to love. Ryan Bingham, whose job is to lay off employees for other companies and who offers motivational lectures on the side about what’s really important and worth having in life, faces crises personally and professionally that challenge his whole philosophy. While it has some serious contenders to deal with, Up in the Air should be taken seriously itself to make a run for Best Picture.

District 9

Because the science-fiction market of both film and literature has always been flooded with so much material, a huge amount can fall in the category of “Crap.” However, just as I’d argue Kurt Vonnegut’s novels are more than “just science-fiction,” I’d argue the same for Neill Blomkamp’s allegory about South African apartheid. And the Academy seems to agree. When a strange alien race of refugees settles in over Johannesburg, they’re treated like scum and a social burden. Wikus Van De Merwe, an administrator in a shady global corporation, accidentally gets tied into the fate of the aliens and the need for their escape. District 9 is a fast-paced and exciting movie that thoroughly entertains while also teaching a lesson by highlighting a serious defect in human nature. I don’t think it can win this category, but I’m particularly happy the Academy made the move to ten Best Picture nominees because it gives this film the recognition it deserves.

The Hurt Locker

My favorite little-film-that-could last year was The Wrestler. I especially enjoyed how suspenseful the last fifteen minutes were, when it seemed like Randy the Ram could kick the bucket at any moment. With The Hurt Locker, that suspense is magnified, extending throughout the duration of the film that focuses on a bomb squad in Iraq. While World War II films have always glorified its subject matter, films about wars since, namely Vietnam and Iraq, instead focus on the inescapability and trauma of wartime experiences (i.e. Deerhunter and Brothers). It’s been done to the point that the soldier character who can’t shake his past has become as cliche as the mean cheerleader in teen movies. However, The Hurt Locker shows the change a man at war undergoes and, more importantly, why he can’t change back. Sergeant First Class William James needs to go a little crazy to do his job defusing road-side bombs in the middle of messy Iraq, but it’s the fact that he can’t give it up to be a father and husband back home that is the real tragedy. It’s also why The Hurt Locker needs to be considered a serious player in the Best Picture race. It’s why The Hurt Locker will win.

A Serious Man

This Coen brothers film with much religious influence asks the question, “Why does He put the answers in our head if He will not answer them?” When A Serious Man is over, you may ask the same question about Joel and Ethan. They build up tension in the two hour slice-of-life of Larry Gopnik, but they don’t resolve that tension or answer the questions the film or Larry pose. I had a problem with the abrupt ending of the last Coen brother film nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award (Best Picture No Country for Old Men), although in this particular film it works. We don’t get answers because Larry doesn’t get answers, and an unpredictable and unexpected ending is apt in a story about a man’s life that is unpredictable, unexpected, and completely out of his control. While I’d consider A Serious Man a long shot for taking home hardware in this category, I’d consider this off-beat dark comedy worth a viewing if you aren’t afraid to let a movie ask you some difficult questions about what the nature of your life really is.

An Education

Who would have thought my college film studies class on Scandinavian cinema would have any effect on my life besides a B+ towards my GPA? In that course, one of our Dogme directors was Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig, whose Italian for Beginners and Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself were cute stories about love, but little more. An Education, however, is a much better example of storytelling. A man nearly twice her age woos and falls in love with Jenny, a high school senior with Oxford on the horizon who’s in a real hurry to have an exciting life. The setting is 1960’s London and Jenny finds it terribly boring, which is why she’s so easily wooed by David when he first meets her in the rain one afternoon. Her ultimately doomed fling with the older man teaches her she can’t fast forward to the exciting life she wants; she learns a lesson about the need for an education to make that exciting life for herself. An Education would have had little chance to earn a nomination had the Academy not changed to ten choices for Best Picture, but given the expansion, Scherfig’s film is deserving of a nom, albeit highly unlikely to win.

The Blind Side

My friend Kyle once found an extremely low grade Vodka that he hasn’t been able to find since. Playing off the “Triple Distilled” label on some vodkas, this brand instead advertised, “Distilled Enough.” When I watched The Blind Side, I thought of that elusive, cheap vodka because the story about Michael Oher isn’t the best film from 2009 by far, but it’s good enough - good enough to earn a nomination for Best Picture in a field of ten, that is. Unfortunately, there is less football in this movie than I expected, instead focusing on less interesting areas of life where perseverance is needed blah blah blah. The Blind Side won’t win, but its director, producers, and actors should be honored for the distinction of being part of this group, especially since sports movies much better than it (i.e. Remember the Titans) never received the same respect.

Inglourious Basterds

I’m usually annoyed by Quentin Tarantino films - the stock characters and nauseating dialogue - but any movie that shows Goebbels tearing up after a hard-earned stamp of approval from Hitler is alright by me. At the end of this revenge flick, Aldo the Apache stares into the camera, having just carved a Swastika into a Nazi’s forehead and proposes that it might be his masterpiece. It’s not presumptuous at all to assume this is essentially Tarantino speaking. And you know what? He’s right. Inglourious Basterds is at a new level for the Spaghetti Western-inspired filmmaker. I expected two and a half hours of excessive violence; who doesn’t want to see 180 minutes of Jews killing Nazis? However, much more occurs in this film with many other characters besides the Basterds, and the best part is that they all weave together seamlessly for a riveting and unpredictable climax. In my first Oscar post this season, I neglected to include Inglourious Basterds as a top five movie of 2009 because I hadn’t seen it yet. Now, however, I don’t see any reason why it can’t nip at The Hurt Locker’s heels along with Up in the Air and Avatar.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

“If it keeps on raining, the levee’s gonna break.” That Led Zeppelin lyric kept replaying in my head as I watched Clareece “Precious” Jones endure a life so horrible that it shames me to consider how much I complain about being unemployed. You watch Precious go through Hell and know a breakdown is inevitable. After all, how can an illiterate and severely obese 16 year-old girl with two kids by her own father possibly go on? But she does. If this film, beautifully acted by Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’nique (yes, Mo’nique), doesn’t inspire you, you should have your status as a human being revoked. Understandably so, many people will never see Precious because of its serious subject matter. It never had the chance of catching fire like last year’s indie darling Slumdog Millionaire because it’s just too unpleasant from the start. Frankly, I only saw it because I was so committed to seeing all Best Picture nominees this year. However, if you give this film the chance it deserves, you’ll recognize it as a wonderful, uplifting, and inspiring use of the medium, and while it will not win Best Picture, it will win your respect.