My Oscar Pick? “Up in the Air,” Of Course

March 7th is the big night.

The red carpet will be rolled out, the stars will shine brightly from L.A. and the statues will be given out.

My pick for Best Picture? “Up in the Air,” of course.

Sure, it’s going up against some real heavyweights, but it is right in there and stands just as good a chance of taking home the big prize as every other film. There is always great conversation about what films are going to do well. “Avatar,” will probably end up winning quite a few awards. In fact, there is great speculation that it will take home the Best Picture award. But, for my money, I’m going to go with George Clooney and company in a story that I thought was highly interesting and engaging.

Obviously, I am a bit biased here considering what I do for a living. I thought that American Airlines’ presence (pretty much as a co-star) was so profound was a stroke of marketing genius. I fly American Airlines quite a bit and you can see that I have a special place in my heart for this film. You could also say that I have a soft spot for travel-related films, especially if they are air-related.

In 1970, “Airport” was up for a Best Picture award. I sometimes catch that classic on cable. The three sequels were not quite as good as the original (by quite a long stretch), but the original had a great story adapted for the Arthur Hailey book. Helen Hayes won a Best Supporting Actress award and there were multiple other nominations. The cast included Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster and the always entertaining George Kennedy. Also, Marion Ross, of “Happy Days” fame makes an uncredited appearance.

There’s also a fun bit of trivia that hits a little close to home. The airport in the film was Chicago-area Lincoln airport. But, most of the airport scenes were filmed at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport because of the amount of snow that usually falls there. When filming started, the weather stayed clear. So the director was forced to use plastic “snow” to create the effect.

And I think we can all agree that it was a shame that “Airplane!” (another cable classic) was left out of the proceedings in 1980.

I love travel — especially air travel. So, yes, I am biased.

And I hope that “Up in the Air” gets the nod this year.

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