2009 Oscar Predictions

Talk about last minute. Anyway, here are my predictions for the major Oscar categories this year.

Actor in a Leading Role
This is a toss up between Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke, both fantastic performances and both hard to compare to each other as they’re coming from such different places. Rourke’s got the momentum right now though and that counts for a lot with the academy, not to mention his Golden Globe win. As much as I may find it personally difficult to choose, the winner is:

Mickey Rourke

Actor in a Supporting Role
This one should be easy. The only reason the academy wouldn’t give this to Heath Ledger would be because they didn’t want to seem like he was getting the award only because he’s dead. First of, the academy doesn’t give a shit about that and second, he would have won it anyway. I know there’s been talk about Robert Downey Jr., but honestly he’s only nominated so the academy can show him what’s possible when he’s sober for a change.

Heath Ledger

Actress in a Leading Role
This is never an easy category for me to pick and probably the one where I’m wrong the most. Unfortunately I’ve only seen one of the movies these performances were picked from so I don’t have a lot of first hand information to work off of. Based on what I know of the actresses, I’d say that this is a race between Meryl Streep, who gave an uncomfortable, but excellent performance in Doubt and Kate Winslet who unfortunately was in two movies this year that I had no interest in. I’ll probably be wrong, but I’m going to say:

Meryl Streep

Actress in a Supporting Role
Contrary to Leading Role, I saw all but one of the movies for these performances and it’s still hard to pick. Amy Adams was good, but I’m not sure it was Oscar worthy. Taraji P. Henson was one of the better parts of Benjamin Button, but I’m not sure it was Oscar worthy either. Viola Davis was very good, but in all of 2 scenes in the movie. And Marissa Tomei is probably the only one that I might give a statue to here. Knowing what I know of Penelope Cruz however, I bet she gets the award.

Penelope Cruz

Animated Feature Film
Hey folks, here’s how you pick the best animated film of the year. If it’s before 1995 you choose the Disney movie. If it’s after 1995 you choose the Pixar movie. If there’s a Miyazaki film the running, there’s a 75% chance that it will win. This one is Wall-E all the way.

Wall-E

Art Direction
Academy … what are you doing to me? 4 period pieces and Batman? This is nearly impossible. I’m going to go with Benjamin Button though, simply because I can’t see an action movie winning this award and the other choices are such standard go to choices for an art direction award.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cinematography
Maybe it was just me, but Slumdog Millionaire was beautifully shot. Granted all the nominees have decent claims here, but I think Slumdog was such a total package of a film that I can’t ignore it here.

Slumdog Millionaire

Costume Design
This is between Benjamin Button and The Duchess. Why The Duchess? Because anything from that era is always a contender for costume. Australia may have some claim, but did anyone even see that movie? I think Benjamin Button gets it though for being period accurate while stylized at the same time.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Directing
This should be a hard one to pick because these are all amazing directors, but the award goes to Slumdog for one simple reason that I will illuminate later.

Slumdog Millionaire

Film Editing
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dark Knight pick this one up, but it depends on what kind of night Slumdog is having, because it could easily shift in that direction. Benjamin Button shouldn’t even be here. If there were ever a movie in need of editing it was that epic time consumer. I think this will lean to Slumdog though, Dark Knight has technical awards it can win.

Slumdog Millionaire

Make Up
The aging effects on Benjamin Button’s Brad Pitt were digital for the large part and not prosthetic, but even still, I think it wins over Dark Knight and Hellboy II.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Music (score)
I’m not certain here, but I’m thinking Slumdog again as I don’t recall anything particularly stand out about Benjamin Button or Milk. Perhaps Wall-E and Defiance had excellent scores, but this is going to be a Slumdog night.

Slumdog Millionaire

Music (song)
I’m going to take a little liberty here and give myself a 66% chance of getting it right. One of the Slumdog songs is going to win, but I have no idea which one.

Slumdog Millionaire

Visual Effects
If there were one award beside supporting actor that Dark Knight could be sure to get it would be this one, that is if a lot of Brad Pitt’s aging in Benjamin Button weren’t digital. To be honest, it was a sight to behold. I think this goes to Button.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Writing (adapted screenplay)
I can’t explain it, but I think Slumdog gets it. This is honestly a tough category though because the adaptations here were all very good. I think the defining factor will be the film and this is Slumdog’s night.

Slumdog Millionaire

Writing (original screenplay)
This one goes to Milk or Frozen River. Why? Because the writers have never been nominated before. Ok, so I didn’t see Frozen River and have no idea whether it’s worthy of this award, but in my experience this award goes to new writers and this is Courtney Hunt’s first screenplay. Dustin Lance Black has a little more experience, but I want to see Milk win something and that’s the direction I’m going.

Milk

Best Picture
When you really take stock of what’s here, the only movie that stands a chance to win this award is Slumdog Millionaire. Benjamin Button was decent, but ultimately nothing more than a less interesting Forrest Gump. Frost / Nixon was a movie about performances and little else. Milk was fantastic, but a little narrowly focused to be Best Picture in a year where the academy isn’t trying to make a point . The Reader I did not see and that’s all I need to say about that. And Slumdog is probaly one of only 2 or 3 movies from 2008 that I would actually want to own.

Slumdog Millionaire