Oscar Night Preditions

Here are my bold predictions for Sunday night. The star icon denotes my predicted winner; the heart indicates the one I like the most.


Best Actor

• Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
• Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
  
• Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
  
• Sean Penn, The Dark Knight ★ ♥

All great performances here, though I would put Brad Pitt at the bottom of the list. While he did a fine job, the real star of Benjamin Button was the make-up department. Richard Jenkins gave the most natural, relatable performance of the year in the lovely film The Visitor. Although I had trouble with the believability of the script of Frost/Nixon, and the film as a whole seemed lightweight, I loved Frank Langella's striking performance as Richard Nixon. Mickey Rourke put his body through hell in The Wrestler, and he certainly earned the awards that he has already received. But I think the Academy's snob factor will work against him and for Sean Penn, whom they have already anointed as a Great Actor. That's fine with me, as I think Sean Penn gave the best performance of his career, and the best by any actor this year, in Milk.


Best Actress

• Meryl Streep, Doubt ♥
• Melissa Leo, Frozen River
• Kate Winslet, The Reader ★
• Angelina Jolie, Changeling
  
• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

Here is the first acting category in which I expect the Academy to get it wrong. They seem determined to give Kate Winslet the award, partly out of the sense that she has earned one after five previous nominations, partly because voters loved her work in Revolutionary Road (I think that was the better of her two lead performances this year), and partly because Harvey Weinstein is campaigning for her like crazy. While Kate was strong in The Reader, bringing complexity and even warmth to an unlikable character, the movie as a whole left me cold, so I'm not feeling inclined to reward her with the Oscar. If you read my earlier post you know how I feel about Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married (blecchh). Angelina Jolie was gorgeous in Changeling, but I didn't find her convincing in the mother role; in any case the gorgeous art direction and set decoration were the real highlights of Changeling. I was enthralled by Melissa Leo, so heartbreakingly believable as a mother struggling to stay true to her core values in the face of overpowering economic pressures. I hope that more people take the time to check out Frozen River, a fantastic example of great independent filmmaking. Meryl Streep took several chances in her role as a nun in Doubt, choosing a tricky accent and an abrupt conversational style that lacked elegance but certainly benefited the film. Her otherwise-perfect performance was marred by the disappointing final scene, but that is more the writer-director's fault than Meryl's.


Best Adapted Screenplay

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ♥
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire ★

Doubt worked incredibly well on the live stage, but I didn't like the changes that John Patrick Shanley made for the movie screenplay. The Reader's screenplay featured several unbearable sequences, particularly all of the scenes in the law school classroom. I'm looking for Slumdog to take this award, but I have a slight preference for the elegant script of Benjamin Button.


Best Animated Feature

• Bolt
  
• Kung Fu Panda
• Wall*E ★ ♥

OK, I admit I didn't make it to Bolt or Panda, but I'm still confident that Wall*E will win. I wasn't crazy about the misanthropic second half of Wall*E, particularly the implied linkage between being overweight and being lazy and stupid, but the first half was so beautiful, so elegant, so poetic, so totally unique that it makes the movie worthy of all the accolades.


Best Animated Short

• La Maison en Petits Cubes
• Lavatory - Lovestory ♥
• Oktapodi
• Presto
• This Way Up ★

I can't resist a lavatory love story....


Best Art Direction

• Changeling ♥
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ★
• The Dark Knight
• The Duchess
  
• Revolutionary Road

I'm guessing that Benjmain Button will take this award in recognition of its three full hours of scenes all around the world. The Duchess featured lovely British mansion interiors and exteriors, but nothing we haven't seen before. I admired the art direction of both The Dark Knight and Revolutionary Road, but my favorite this year was definitely Changeling. In fact the art direction was the best thing about that film, in my opinion.


Best Cinematography

• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ♥
• The Dark Knight
• The Reader
  
• Slumdog Millionaire ★

Slumdog should win, thanks to its dramatic camera work in such colorful, beautiful locations. My favorite this year was Benjamin Button, which featured some incredibly beautiful shots--for example, the swimming scene with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett when they "meet in the middle." I hope that The Reader doesn't win here; I thought the camera-work was stodgy, heavy-handed and indulgent on many occasions, though the shots of the young men and women on the dock at the lake were gorgeous.


Best Costume Design

• Australia
  
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Duchess ★
• Milk ♥
• Revolutionary Road
  

Academy voters can't resist the extravagant get-ups that always appear in frothy period pieces like The Duchess. I would rather that they recognized either Milk or Revolutionary Road for thoughtful costuming that lent credibility to the 1970s and 1950s settings, respectively. Benjamin Button has a shot at the prize as well.


Best Director

• Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire★
• David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
• Gus Van Sant, Milk ♥
• Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
• Stephen Daldry, The Reader
  

Stephen Daldry is a potential upset winner here. This is his third nomination (after Billy Elliot and The Hours), and Harvey Weinstein is on the campaign trail for him. But I think that the Academy will instead recognize first-time nominee Danny Boyle for Slumdog, a wildly inventive and suspenseful movie like none Hollywood has seen before. Prior winner Ron Howard has no chance this year. I think that both David Fincher and Gus Van Sant will receive plenty of votes, as they are both respected veterans with well-regarded films this year. While Van Sant's unique style was not on display in Milk as much as in other recent films like Paranoid Park and Elephant, I still pick him as my favorite because he was the driving force behind the most important and most emotionally resonant film of the year in Milk.


Best Documentary Feature

• The Betrayal
  
• Encounters at the End of the World
  
• The Garden
• Man on Wire ★
• Trouble the Water ♥

Man on Wire received universally glowing reviews and may be the most joyful film of the new century, even as it recounts events from 1974. Encounters, in contrast, offered a dark vision of nature's harshness in its portrait of Antarctica and the few life forms, human and otherwise, that try to survive there. Made by the widely respected Werner Herzog, Encounters has a shot at winning, but I think Man on Wire will take the trophy. I loved both of those films, but my favorite documentary of the year was the heartbreaking Trouble the Water, with its firsthand accounts of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.


Best Documentary Short

• The Conscience of Nhem En
  
• The Final Inch
• Smile Pinki
  
• The Witness -- From the Balcony of Room 306 ★ ♥

Best Film Editing

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
• The Dark Knight ♥
• Frost/Nixon
  
• Milk
• Slumdog Millionaire★

The Best Picture winner usually carries this category, so my star goes to Slumdog.


Best Foreign Language Film

• The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
  
• The Class (France) ★
• Departures (Japan)
• Revanche (Austria)
  
• Waltz with Bashir (Israel) ♥

The two that have been widely released in the U.S., The Class and Waltz with Bashir, are in a tight race for this award. I suspect that the Academy voters will prefer the live-action French film over the creative, devastatingly sad, animated Israeli entry. My favorite foreign language film of the year, the Swedish horror masterpiece Let the Right One In, wasn't even nominated.


Best Live-Action Short

• Auf der Strecke
  
• Manon on the Asphalt
• New Boy
  
• The Pig
• Spielzeugland★ ♥

What a depressing group of films! The subject matter, respectively: Man beaten to death on subway; woman killed in car accident; boy taken from home country after father kidnapped in military coup; man faces terminal cancer; Jewish family boards train to Auschwitz. A good rule of thumb at the Oscars is that the Holocaust drama always wins. That's fine with me this year, as I thought Spielzeugland was the best of a strong group of nominees.


Best Make-Up

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ★ ♥
• The Dark Knight
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
  

Angelina Jolie's make-up for Changeling was my favorite of the year, but since it wasn't nominated, I'll go with the very impressive backward/forward-aging make-up of Benjamin Button.


Best Original Score

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
  
• Defiance
• Milk
• Slumdog Millionaire ★
• Wall*E ♥

In the past, I've found Thomas Newman's scores to be indulgent and annoying, but his score for Wall*E was fantastic--and essential to the success of the wordless first half of the movie.


Best Original Screenplay

• Frozen River
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• In Bruges
  
• Milk ★ ♥
• Wall*E

The Wall*E script is unique and interesting, but I didn't like the second half. I loved the natural, realistic feel of the story of Frozen River. But Milk wins.


Best Original Song

• "Down to Earth" from Wall*E ♥
• "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire ★
• "O Saya" from Slumdog Millionaire

Where is Bruce Springsteen's theme from The Wrestler?


Best Picture

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

The only film with a real chance at upsetting Slumdog for Best Picture is Milk. Most Academy votes live in California and experienced the shocking endorsement of anti-gay discrimination by the state's voters last November; their outrage may drive sentiment to reward the film about the history of the movement for gay equality. I would be pleased as punch if that happened. While The Reader may have a shot in the director category, I don't think it will garner many votes for Best Picture, given that its critical reception was mixed. Frost/Nixon is perhaps too breezy and happy to win, and Benjamin Button is highly respected but not loved.


Best Sound Editing

• The Dark Knight ★
• Iron Man ♥
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Wall*E
  
• Wanted

Best Sound Mixing

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight ★ ♥
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Wall*E
  
• Wanted

Best Supporting Actor

• Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight ★ ♥
• Josh Brolin, Milk
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
  
• Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
  
• Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
  

Of course Heath Ledger will win, as he should, for his fascinating work as The Joker. Philip Seymour Hoffman was very strong as the accused priest in Doubt. Josh Brolin totally nailed the role of Dan White in Milk. I'm less enthused about Michael Shannon's inclusion in this group; his scenes in Revolutionary Road felt out of place, distracting from the core storyline. And while I adore RDJ, I just can't get past the blackface he employed in Tropic Thunder. There are so may other Downey performances that have been more deserving of Oscar nominations -- the troubled musician with mommy issues in Two Girls and a Guy, the unscrupulous TV reporter in Natural Born Killers, the alienated gay brother in Home for the Holidays, to name a few -- so why is the Academy honoring him for the forgettable Thunder?


Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, Doubt
• Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
• Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona ★ ♥
  
• Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Viola Davis, Doubt

I think it would be hilarious if Marisa Tomei were to win. That would make her a two-time Oscar winner, putting her ahead of legends like Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Susan Sarandon. Having said that, I did enjoy her bold performance as an aging stripper in The Wrestler. I also appreciated how Taraji P. Henson brought so much warmth to her role as the emotional anchor of the rambling epic Benjamin Button. While Viola Davis had the flashier role in Doubt, Amy Adams gave the better performance, full of nuance. Adams will certainly take home an Oscar someday, but this time I give the edge to Penelope Cruz as the wildly passionate and unpredictable artist in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.


Best Visual Effects

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ♥
• The Dark Knight ★
• Iron Man