Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek 02.18.09 Oscar Picks

Posted by Jordan Bruns on 02.18.2009

Since the Oscars are my Super Bowl and the build-up to them the most titillating part of the winter months, what better way to prepare for Sunday's ceremony than to predict the winners?




Welcome to this week's Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek! For the last month or so I've been entertaining (or perhaps, boring) people with my incessant columns about the Oscars. This will be my last one for the year, because the big show is a mere four days away.

I watched both the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards and I've followed the buzz pretty closely. Slumdog Millionaire has emerged as the film to beat this year and I can say I won't be disappointed if it takes home the Best Picture prize. But will it actually win?

I'm normally one who rebels against movies with this much hype surrounding them, so when I went to see it I expected at best to find it overrated and at worse to outright hate it. I figured it would be your typical rags-to-riches fairy tale but it is so much more. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a wonderful film- engaging, thought-provoking, and entertaining. However, I am not here to review the film, I just wanted to throw my two cents out there to anyone who has still not seen it. What I am going to do this week is give my Oscar picks. This is not a list of who/what I want to win, but who/what I think will win. I'll begin with the screenplay awards and work my way up to Best Picture.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

My Mad Ramblings
Beaufoy won the Golden Globe, in addition to being honored by the Writers Guild and Critics Choice Awards. Also, the film he wrote just happens to be the one everyone's talking about.

Winner: Simon Beaufoy

Best Original Screenplay:
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Mike Leigh, Happy Go Lucky
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, WALL-E

My Mad Ramblings
A win at the Writers Guild Awards, as well as a Best Picture nomination, should benefit Milk in this race. Plus, political movies contain a lot of speeches, which gives screenwriters a chance to really show their stuff.

Winner: Dustin Lance Black

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

My Mad Ramblings
Since Kate Winslet's performance in The Reader was honored with a Best Actress nod, rather than the expected Supporting Actress nomination, the playing field is now wide open. Viola Davis is a good candidate- Doubt received multiple acting nominations and this is its best chance at a win. However, Penelope Cruz shouldn't be counted out, especially since she's in a Woody Allen movie; his films have produced several Oscar-winning performances.

Winner: Penelope Cruz

Best Supporting Actor:
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

My Mad Ramblings
There's only one thing I can say about the nominees in this category. If I were to bet money on Heath Ledger winning, I could probably retire.

Winner: Heath Ledger (and not because he died, because he deserves it)

Best Actress:
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

My Mad Ramblings
Oscar's love affair with Meryl Streep continues, as she has secured a record 15th acting nomination. It's basically a two-way race between her and Kate Winslet, though Hathaway shouldn't be counted out either. What it basically comes down to is this: Streep already has two Oscars under her belt, and Winslet is 0 for 5 (0 for 6 if she doesn't win this year). There are those who feel she should have received a Supporting Actress nod for the The Reader and been nominated in this category for Revolutionary Road. Thus, the Academy could conceivably award her for both performances here. On the other hand, those members who consider her role in The Reader to be a Supporting one might vote for Streep instead. However, barring a Hathaway upset, it's likely the Academy will continue its trend of giving the award to someone as compensation for all the times they didn't win (ie, Al Pacino's win for Scent of a Woman).

Winner: Kate Winslet

Best Actor:
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

My Mad Ramblings
This is probably the most suspenseful race of the year, as Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke are both considered frontrunners and either one could conceivably take home the gold. No disrespect to the others, but they're just afterthoughts in this race. It will be one of these two men who wins. But which one? Mickey Rourke has the Golden Globe, Sean Penn has the SAG award. Normally the SAG awards are better indicators of who will win the Oscar, but unfortunately for Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke is the comeback story of the year. The fact that his real-life experiences mirror those of his character in The Wrestler makes him the sentimental favorite. Also, Oscar loves comeback stories. On the other hand, Sean Penn has received widespread acclaim and award recognition for his portrayal of gay politician Harvey Milk, which could lead an increasingly progressive Academy to rebel against Proposition 8 and recognize his performance. I've been going back and forth on this for weeks, and I think a win for Rourke would be a more dramatic moment than watching Penn claim his second Oscar.

Winner: Mickey Rourke (It took me a long time to decide…)


:
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Steven Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Snat, Milk

My Mad Ramblings This category is full of acclaimed filmmakers. Ron Howard is 1 for 1 at the Oscars. Stephen Daldry has only directed three films… but he's received a Best Director nomination for all three of them. Add Fincher and Van Sant to the race, and things start to look interesting… in any other year…

Winner: Danny Boyle

Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

My Mad Ramblings
Just a couple months ago, The Curious case of Benjamin Button looked to be an early frontrunner for Best Picture. All of a sudden, Slumdog Millionaire began dominating the awards shows. In fact, Button has been virtually ignored by all major award groups. The Reader is a surprise nominee, since most people (myself included) expected Revolutionary Road or Doubt to be included. Thus, in the case of The Reader, its win is its nomination. I'm giving this race way more analysis than it needs, because the outcome is pretty obvious. "The Little Bollywood Film That Could" will conclude its Cinderella Story by winning the film industry's most presitigious award.

Winner: Slumdog Millionaire

Those are my picks for the major categories, and it's safe to say that this year's ceremony will be predictable even by Oscar standards. Most of the winners were decided a long time ago. Should Heath Ledger win Best Supporting Actor (which we all know is going to happen), he'll become only the second person in history to win a posthumous Academy Award for acting, after Peter Finch's 1977 Best Actor for Network. That alone should be an emotional and historic moment. There's also the burning question of who will accept the award for him? Christopher Nolan accepted his Golden Globe, while Gary Oldman accepted his SAG award. He wasn't married when he died, and his daughter Mathilda is too young. My money's on Nolan, since in a situation like this the director of the film becomes the obvious default choice.

It'll be interesting to see how accurate my picks for the eight major awards were, but I'm not stopping there. As a bonus, I'm going to rundown the rest of the categories and give my predictions for them. There will be analyses or lists of nominees for this part, though. I'm simply going to list the category and what film I predict to win. Sometimes people get so caught up in the buzz surrounding the major awards that they forget there are a total of 24 awards to be handed out. Although it may not matter that much to the people watching at home, whoever wins the award for Best Costume Design has just reached the pinnacle of his or her career. Here are the rest of my picks:

Best Live Action Short: Spielzugland
Best Animated Short: Presto
Best Animated Feature: WALL-E
Best Documentary Short: The Witness- From the Balcony of Room 306
Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire
Best Foreign Language Film: The Class (France)
Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Sound Mixing: The Dark Knight
Best Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Costume Design: The Duchess
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Score: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Song: "Jai Ho", Slumdog Millionaire

There you have it- my predictions for all 24 categories. I have Slumdog Millionaire winning seven awards, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Dark Knight winning three, and all other nominees winning only one. If my predictions hold up, we're looking at the first Oscar sweep since Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2004. Don't try to throw The Departed or No Country For Old Men in my face- those films won 4 awards each. Winning 4 awards out of 24 does not constitute a sweep.

With only four days left until the big show, we'll know soon enough how accurate my predictions are. There's a chance my predictions in the lesser categories could be way off base (not enough buzz surrounding them), but I'm confident in my picks for the major awards.

That's it for this week's Mad Ramblings. Until next time…