2010 Oscar Predictions: Best Documentary

2010 Oscar Predictions
Best Documentary Feature

The Beaches of Agnes, Agnès Varda, director (Cine-Tamaris)

The Cove, Louie Psihoyos, director (Oceanic Preservation Society)

Food, Inc., Robert Kenner, director (Robert Kenner Films)

Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, Mark N. Hopkins, director (Red Floor Pictures LLC)

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, directors (Kovno Communications)

Like in the best foreign language film category, the best documentary feature Academy Award nominations are decided by a relatively small group of people. Like in the best foreign language film category, controversies have plagued the Academy’s documentary branch since its inception decades ago.
Four of the five films above have been widely talked about, especially The Beaches [...]

Los Angeles Film Critics Winner THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS Returns to LA

Cinema Guild will bring Agnès Varda’s Les plages d’Agnès / The Beaches of Agnès back to Los Angeles for an open-ended return engagement on Saturday, December 26, and Sunday, December 27, at 11 am at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood and Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.
Named the Best Documentary of 2009 (tied with Louie Psihoyos‘ The Cove) by the Los Angeles Film Critics, The Beaches of Agnès has also been included on the shortlist for Academy Award consideration in the Best Documentary Feature category. Additionally, The Beaches of Agnès was nominated for an European Film Award.
From the Cinema Guild press release:
Agnès Varda, whom A.O. Scott in The New York Times deemed “a treasure” when writing [...]

Los Angeles Film Critics 2009 Winners: THE HURT LOCKER

As I had predicted, Nine, The Lovely Bones, Avatar, and The Blind Side didn’t get much recognition from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which announced their winners earlier today.
Talent from those films was probably mentioned during the voting, but only Avatar got listed in the final results: it was the runner-up (Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg) in the best production design category, after District 9 (Philip Ivey).
Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker was the Los Angeles critics’ big winner — best film, best director (no split, my prediction notwithstanding) — matching results earlier today from the Boston Society of Film Critics. Actually, the Boston critics gave the Iraq War drama about a team of [...]

Oscar 2010: Documentary Feature Semi-Finalists

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 15 semi-finalists in the 2010 Academy Awards’ Documentary Feature category. Eighty-nine films had been in the running.
The 15 documentary feature semi-finalists are:

The Beaches of Agnes, Agnès Varda, director (Cine-Tamaris)

Burma VJ, Anders Østergaard, director (Magic Hour Films)

The Cove, Louie Psihoyos, director (Oceanic Preservation Society)

Every Little Step, James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, directors (Endgame Entertainment)

Facing Ali, Pete McCormack, director (Network Films Inc.)

Food, Inc., Robert Kenner, director (Robert Kenner Films)

Garbage Dreams, Mai Iskander, director (Iskander Films, Inc.)

Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders, Mark N. Hopkins, director (Red Floor Pictures LLC)

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Ehrlich [...]

Oscar 2010: Early Predictions – Best Documentary

BEST DOCUMENTARY

The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès Varda
Veteran filmmaker Agnès Varda remembers her life’s beaches, sand dunes, sun rays, and more.

Burma VJ, Anders Østergaard
In 2007, thousands of monks took to the streets of Burma to protest the military government’s brutal anti-democratic policies.

The Cove, Louie Psihoyos
Beautiful, intelligent dolphins are abused and slaughtered to provide entertainment and fodder for ugly, stupid people. The bloody cove of the title is located near Taijii, Japan, where the government does nothing to stop the slaughter.

Food, Inc., Robert Kenner
The distasteful food industry and their government accomplices vs. your health

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, undemocracy at work, [...]

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