Best Editing
Nominees:
Avatar, Stephen E. Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
District 9, Julian Clarke
*The Hurt Locker, Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
Inglourious Basterds, Sally Menke
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Joe Klotz
This is the part of the Oscar show that has you switching over to watch Big Love; someday, when there's a radical do-over of the ceremony, these categories will be consigned to an off-the-air luncheon hosted by, oh, David Letterman. But it's also where Oscar pools are won. And if there are four people essential to making a movie, they'd be the writer, the director, the cinematographer and the editor — the one who puts it all together. For the technical awards, smart money follows the Guild votes, and the Editors Guild picked The Hurt Locker, presumably for the suspenseful precision of the bomb-defusing scenes. Go with the experts.