Predicting the Oscar Winners

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 Actress

• Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
• Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
• Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
• Natalie Portman, Black Swan ★
• Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole ♥

An upset win by Annette Bening (for what is really a lightweight performance) is possible, but the Academy seems to prefer giving this award to younger women. I did not like Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan, but she is the consensus pick. For me, two nominees stood far above the others: Nicole Kidman and Michelle Williams. Williams outclasses all of her Young-Hollywood peers in her ability to convey deep emotional pain, and her talents are on full display in Blue Valentine. Kidman gives the finest performance of her career as the grieving mother in Rabbit Hole, which deserved, but did not receive, nominations for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Aaron Eckhardt), Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Art Direction.


Best Actor

• Colin Firth, The King's Speech ★ ♥
• James Franco, 127 Hours
  
• Javier Bardem, Biutiful
• Jeff Bridges, True Grit
• Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Colin Firth is mesmerizing and utterly believable as the monarch working to overcome his stutter. Next best in this category is Jesse Eisenberg, with his rapid-fire delivery and scary intensity. I enjoyed James Franco's performance, but the role lacked depth. Jeff Bridges brings unexpected humor to the otherwise-flat True Grit, but he isn't really the lead character in the film. I haven't seen Biutiful yet; I hear that Javier Bardem gives a great performance but that the movie drags a bit.


Best Adapted Screenplay

• 127 Hours
• The Social Network ★ ♥
• Toy Story 3
  
• True Grit
  
• Winter's Bone

The key to the effectiveness of The Social Network is its amazing screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Melding Shakespearean tragedy with ultra-contemporary dialogue and themes, Sorkin provides the framework that gives the film its powerful impact. Winter's Bone tells a story that we have never seen before, and its nomination here is well-deserved.

The formal dialogue of the True Grit screenplay may have been true to its source material, but it made the whole movie seem a bit pretentious and ultimately flat. The True Grit screenplay sorely needed more of the Coen brothers' usual quirkiness. I'm really surprised that it made the nominee list at all, when there were any number of superior adapted screenplays in the running: The Ghost Writer, Rabbit Hole, and I Love You Phillip Morris, to name a few.


Best Animated Feature

• How to Train Your Dragon ♥
• The Illusionist
  
• Toy Story 3 ★

I'm not a fan of animation generally. I have only seen one of the three nominated movies: The Illusionist, which I found to be dull both in palette and in story. The Toy Story movies strike me as a bit cloying, so I'm giving my heart to the universally well-reviewed How to Train Your Dragon.


Best Animated Short

• Day & Night ★
• The Gruffalo ♥
• Let's Pollute
  
• The Lost Thing
• Madagascar, carnet de voyage

Haven't seen any of them. I've heard that Madagascar is filled with beautiful colors but that Day & Night is a first-class Pixar production. My heart goes to Gruffalo based only on the name.


Best Art Direction

• Alice in Wonderland ♥
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I
• Inception
  
• The King's Speech ★
• True Grit
  

This is a difficult category to predict. Inception could certainly win, as could or The King's Speech or Alice. I would have nominated Black Swan for that amazing apartment (the pink bedroom! the mother's art studio!). I think The King's Speech had beautiful sets that seemed authentic, so it is likely to win here, though Alice was more visually interesting and creative.


Best Cinematography

• Black Swan ♥
• Inception
• The King's Speech
• The Social Network
  
• True Grit ★

True Grit is the likely winner--voters love grand landscapes--but I think Black Swan is more deserving. The cinematographer captured the intensity of the physical trauma suffered by the dancers, which helped to set a tone that allowed the film to veer from psychodrama into pure horror. I'm not saying I enjoyed the close-ups of bloody fingernails and implanted wing spurs (I covered my eyes quite a bit), but they were certainly effective.


Best Costume Design

• Alice in Wonderland ♥
• I Am Love
  
• The King's Speech ★
• The Tempest
• True Grit

Historical usually trumps fantasy in this category, so I'm predicting a win for The King's Speech. Where is the nomination for the gorgeous Rodarthe feather costumes in Black Swan?


Best Director

• Darren Aronovsky, Black Swan
  
• David Fincher, The Social Network★ ♥
• David O. Russell, The Fighter
• Ethan and Joel Coen, True Grit
• Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
  

After last year's surprisingly diverse group of nominees (a female winner in Kathryn Bigelow, gay African-American nominee Lee Daniels, and whatever Quentin Tarantino is) we are back to the usual crew of straight white males. Too bad that two deserving female candidates this year didn't make the cut: Debra Granik for Winter's Bone and the fierce lesbian Lisa Cholodenko for The Kids Are All Right. It's very possible that Tom Hooper will win this award, but I think the Academy will go with David Fincher for directing a film that will likely be remembered and respected for many decades.


Best Documentary Feature

• Exit Through the Gift Shop
  
• Gasland ♥
• Inside Job
  
• Restrepo ★
• Waste Land
  

The pundits expect Inside Job to win, which in my opinion would be a terrible outcome. I found Inside Job to be so off-putting that I walked out midway through the movie. I'm told that it got better toward the end. The only other nominated film that I've seen is Gasland, which I loved--I can't get out of my head all those images of people lighting their tap water on fire. I'm predicting an upset win here for the war-themed Restrepo on the theory that at least some of the voters shared my distaste for Inside Job.


Best Documentary Short

• Killing in the Name ♥
• Poster Girl
  
• Strangers No More
  
• Sun Comes Up★
• The Warriors of Qiugang
  

No idea. Wild guess.


Best Film Editing

• 127 Hours
  
• Black Swan
  
• The Fighter
• The King's Speech
  
• The Social Network★ ♥

127 Hours is also deserving, but I think The Social Network will take this award.


Best Foreign Language Film

• Biutiful
  
• Dogtooth
  
• In A Better World★
• Incendies
  
• Outside the Law ♥

Haven't seen any of them yet, though I'm hoping to catch Outside the Law and Biutiful in the next couple of weeks. Biutiful might be a logical choice to win here since Javier Bardem's performance earned a Best Actor nomination. But the Academy requires voters to see all five nominees in order to vote in this category, and I'm told that Biutiful is less enjoyable than the Danish film In A Better World, which won the Golden Globe.


Best Live-Action Short

• The Confession
  
• The Crush
  
• God of Love ★
• Na Wewe
• Wish 143 ♥

I saw all five nominees. All of them had violent elements: guns, car crashes, bows and arrows, etc. My favorite of the bunch was Wish 143, about a teenage boy with cancer who doesn't want to die a virgin. The Crush pulled off the feat of being adorable despite ending in a shootout. The Confession was well-made but unnecessarily violent. Na Wewe might win; it explores the hot topic of genocide in central Africa. But I'm afraid that the film with the most audience appeal was God of Love, which I found to be depressing rather than touching.


Best Make-Up

• Barney's Version
  
• The Way Back ♥
• The Wolfman ★

I haven't seen these three films. My guess is that the weird prosthetics of Wolfman will win the day.


Best Original Score

• 127 Hours
  
• How to Train Your Dragon
  
• Inception
  
• The King's Speech ★
• The Social Network ♥

Trent Reznor should win for his brilliant Social Network score, but I think this award will go to Alexandre Desplat for his elegant (and excellent) work on The King's Speech. Classical composer John Adams was robbed of a nomination for his massively complex and compelling score for I Am Love.


Best Original Screenplay

• Another Year
  
• The Fighter
• Inception
  
• The Kids Are All Right ♥
• The King's Speech ★

Not an especially impressive group of nominees. The best is The Kids Are All Right. Although it is breezy and lightweight, and the ending was a bit lacking, I loved the dialogue--it seemed so authentic and contemporary. My favorite original screenplay of last year was for the brilliantly brash Please Give. Not nominated, of course.


Best Original Song

• "Coming Home" from Country Strong ♥
• "I See the Light" from Tangled
• "If I Rise" from 127 Hours ★
• "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3
  

For me the best original song in any movie of last year was "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque. That song won the Golden Globe but was inexplicably left off the nominations list for the Oscar. I sort of liked the 127 Hours song, which was sung by Dido. I've heard that "Coming Home" is pretty good as well.


Best Picture

• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• The Fighter
• Inception
• The Kids Are All Right
• The King's Speech★ ♥
• The Social Network
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• Winter's Bone
  

The ranked-choice voting system for Best Picture will help The King's Speech (well-liked by nearly everyone) to defeat The Social Network (adored by many, but too dark for some). I almost gave my heart to the unique and fantastic Winter's Bone, but I keep coming back to how wonderful I felt after seeing King's Speech for the first, second and third times. That's a sign of a great movie.


Best Sound Editing

• Inception ★
• Toy Story 3
• TRON: Legacy
  
• True Grit
  
• Unstoppable ♥

This award usually goes to the film with the most awesome special effects, so I'm picking Inception. I didn't see Unstoppable (or Toy Story 3 or TRON), but I'm guessing that the screeching train brakes were pretty cool.


Best Sound Mixing

• Inception ★
• The King's Speech
• Salt
• The Social Network
  
• True Grit ♥

I really have no idea.


Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale, The Fighter
• Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech ★ ♥
• Jeremy Renner, The Town
  
• John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
  
• Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
  

Yes, I'm a bit nuts, but I'm picking the upset for Geoffrey Rush. Partly because I thought Christian Bale overacted a bit, partly because of the delightful perfection of Rush's performance, partly because King's Speech is the better movie overall.


Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
  
• Hallie Steinfeld, True Grit
• Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
  
• Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom ♥
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter★

This one is really hard to predict. First I thought I would go with Amy Adams for the upset, since I keep hearing how much people admired her performance and how some people thought Melissa Leo was too over-the-top. Then I was going to go with Hallie Steinfeld (even though it's really a lead performance) on the theory that Fighter vote-splitting would keep both Leo and Adams from winning. After that I switched to Helena Bonham Carter--those adoringly supportive glances at her husband are unforgettable--but I remembered that her screen time is quite limited. Ultimately I've decided to go with Melissa Leo, who won the Golden Globe and most of the other precursor awards.

My heart goes to the eerily intense performance of Australian actress Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom. My favorite supporting performance of the year (Ann Guilbert in Please Give) was not even nominated.


Best Visual Effects

• Alice in Wonderland ♥
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I
  
• Hereafter
• Inception★
• Iron Man 2
  

Some great nominees this year! I loved Mickey Rourke's electric whips in Iron Man 2, and the tsunami in Hereafter was amazing. But I think Inception will win.


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Enjoy the show!