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www.postmagazine.com January 2010 • Post 23 B E S T P I C T U R E / B E S T D I R E C TO R These two awards usually go hand-in-hand, and there already seems to be a strong consensus about the potential nominees. A long-time Oscar favorite, Clint Eastwood shot his new film, Invictus, starring Mor- gan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, entirely on location in and around Johannesburg and Cape Town, and then posted on the Warner lot, as usual. It was co-pro- duced by Hollywood veteran Mace Neufeld (Patriot Games, No Way Out) who notes that Invictus came in "under budget and a week ahead of schedule. He's simply the most efficient, judicious director I've ever worked with, and if I'd worked with him since day one, I'd have been able to make twice as many films." Peter Jackson and The Lovely Bones (see our inter- view with him in the December issue) also look like shoo-ins, as does Jim Cameron and Avatar There's also a lot of buzz around Crazy Heart, the debut feature film from writer/director Scott Cooper, which stars four-time Academy Award-nominee Jeff Bridges in the role of his lifetime as the alcoholic, semi-tragic anti-hero Bad Blake, a broken-down, hard- living country music singer. Another newish director, Jason Reitman, who scored big with a little film called Juno, avoided the sophomore jinx with his acclaimed new film Up In The Air, starring George Clooney, who looks like a shoo-in for a Best Actor nom. It's only Re- itman's third feature, but he already has the assured touch of a veteran. Precious also looks likely to get noms for Best Picture and for director Lee Daniels. Sad but true: women directors rarely get any Oscar love, but that may change this year with The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Jeremy Renner.The nail-biting suspense drama may still be vivid enough in voters' minds even though it came out earlier in the year, and Bigelow as- sembled an impressive team that includes Barr y Ackroyd, BSC, (United 93) as director of photography. "We chose to shoot in the heat of Jordan, to be close to our subject and to recreate the ex- plosions using special effects rather than vi- sual effects," repor ts the DP, who perfectly cap- tured the visceral nature of the material. Never count out New Zealand writer-director Jane Campion, whose few but impressive credits in- clude The Piano, which won three Oscars includ- ing Best Screenplay for Campion, The Portrait of a Lady and An Angel at my Table. She has always marched to the beat of her own drummer, and al- ways liked a challenge. She cer tainly found one with her latest film, Bright Star, the stor y of the passion- ate and secret love affair between an unknown 23- year-old English poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw), and the young girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cor- nish), an outspoken student of fashion. Shot in England and Rome, the film features gorgeous cinematography by Greig Fraser (2nd Unit on Baz Luhrmann's Aus- tralia), minimal but effective visual effects by FSM, and audio post by Audiolock Sound Design. And another very different war drama may also get recognized — Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. It was shot by Oscar-winner Robert Richardson, who says that the period piece's retro look owes a lot "to bold color choices, a vital aspect of Quentin's work. If the final chapter could've been photographed in I.B. Technicolor we would have — that was not possible — and we were not, at that time, a digital intermedi- ate film… we were completely chemical based." It's telling that no documentar y influences invade the frames, while visually Tarantino explores "specific themes" for each of the five chapters of the film — "the opening chapter was meant to draw inspiration from the spaghetti western, while the chapter in Paris highlighted elements within the French New Wave," says the DP."But Quentin dictated the majority of aes- thetic choices through his dialogue, which had the greatest authority of all. War sets the stage but the di- alogue directs the action." Dialogue — or lack of it — also plays a key role in the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of Cor- mac McCar thy's best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-win- ning novel, The Road. Directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition), the film stars Viggo Mor tenson as a des- perate man tr ying to sur vive with his son as they journey across a bleak post-apocalyptic America. It's grim, but the film (which co-stars Charlize Theron and Robert Duvall) is also very powerful. The Last Station, from writer/director Michael Hoff- man (Restoration), looks even more likely to appeal to Oscar voters. The drama, starring Christopher Plum- mer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as his wife, details the last intrigue-filled year of the literar y giant's life, and was shot on location in Germany and edited by Patricia Rommel, who cut Nowhere in Africa, which won the '02 Best Foreign Film Oscar. District 9 was the low-budget production (it cost a mere $30 million) with a cast of unknowns directed by another unknown (Neil Blomkamp) that bucked con- ventional Hollywood wisdom by proudly wearing its message on its alien sleeve — and slyly combining that apartheid allegory with a good dose of kick-ass action. The result? District 9, which boasted the guiding hand of Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson as producer, cleaned up at the box office, ultimately raking in over $200 mil- lion globally. Even more impressively, the film, featuring a non-actor — South African Sharlto Copley — in the lead, also became one of best-reviewed releases of the year. So what chance does District 9 have of break- ing through at this year's Oscars? While historically the Star George Clooney and director Jason Reitman are in the running for their work on Up In The Air. Clint Eastwood looks like a good bet for helming Invictus.