andPOP's Oscar Predictions

(andPOP) - So it seems andPOP will have me doing an Oscar blog this Sunday... and hand in hand with Oscar blogs, of course, are the Oscar predictions.*

*Please note that the author of this piece has never predicted the Oscars before and makes no outright claims of being an expert, though this will often be implied.

You should probably know your critic. My four favourite films this year, in order, were Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Volver, and Letters From Iwo Jima. Others, in no particular order, included The Illusionist, The Departed, Flushed Away, The Devil Wears Prada, The Queen, Apocalypto, Borat, Clerks II, Flags of Our Fathers, Happy Feet, Little Miss Sunshine, A Scanner Darkly, and Snakes On A Plane. It was a weak year for movies.

The films I found most disappointing included Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest, X3... and Babel. Also, I missed Half Nelson, United 93, Little Children, and three of the foreign film nominations.

Let the predictions begin!

Best Picture

Usually, there's a clear front-runner. This year, that didn't quite happen. There isn't one main front-runner, but two. By most accounts the main one would appear to be Babel, not because it's a good movie, but because of the five nominees it's most clearly About Something. It also won the Golden Globes award for best picture – but then Little Miss Sunshine showed up and won the equivalent prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and the producers.

It's unlikely The Queen is going to win. It won at the BAFTAs, but it was supposed to – both the awards and film were British. It's also the most critically lauded film of the year, and the Academy rarely agrees with critics (see Fargo, L.A. Confidential, Brokeback Mountain, etc.). It isn't really about anything except Britain's royals, and the fact that a best picture nominee was made from such an idea already speaks volumes. Letters From Iwo Jima is also unlikely to win; it was directed by Clint Eastwood, who's gone up to the podium twice already, and produced by Steven Spielberg, who lost the big prize to Shakespeare In Love with his last modern World War II classic, Saving Private Ryan.

The Departed would deserve the win, but I think Martin Scorcese and co. are going to have to content themselves with best director and screenplay wins (see my later predictions). And of the two remaining, I personally think Babel is going to win. The Academy doesn't flat-out love ensemble dramas (Crash might have won last year, but remember that Gladiator won the award over the superior Traffic), but it loves films that are About Something, almost as much as it loves period epics and films about WWII. Little Miss Sunshine is neither About Something, a period epic, nor does it take place in WWII. And I don't think any film has ever won best picture without its director being nominated, and Sunshine's Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris weren't.

Of course, I think Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men should have been nominated over the apparent front-runners. I also think The Queen and Letters From Iwo Jima are the only two movies among the nominees which deserved to be nominated in the first place. Letters From Iwo Jima was a wonderful piece of filmmaking, and even if Clint's won twice for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, it would be equally wonderful to see him bring another trophy home.

Will win: Babel
Should win: Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Director:

If your film doesn't deserve to win best picture, you don't deserve to be nominated for best director. Babel was well-directed, but the screenplay's message was incoherent. The big prize shouldn't go to its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, but if Martin Scorcese doesn't win (and he's the front-runner after bringing home the director's guild prize, which tends to be an accurate barometer and which, like best picture, Marty's often been nominated for and never won), Iñárritu probably will.

The other directors – Paul Greengrass, Stephen Frears, and Clint Eastwood – are probably just thrilled to be nominated. Greengrass won't win – his movie wasn't nominated for best picture (though from what I've heard it deserved to be). Eastwood's won twice and doesn't need another directing trophy on his shelf. And since Frears' greatest skill is that he's a chameleon (you'd never guess the same guy directed The Queen, Dustin Hoffman's 1992 vehicle Hero, and High Fidelity) it stands to reason The Queen lacks that directorial panache necessary to win an award.

Obviously I think Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo Del Toro should have been nominated in this category. Then again, Martin Scorcese should have won 30 years ago when he directed Taxi Driver, 25 years ago when he directed Raging Bull, 15 years ago when he directed GoodFellas, 10 years ago when he directed Casino... you get the picture. The Departed is a solid movie that's among the better stuff American cinema's acknowledged master has done, and if Scorcese wins, the Academy's version of self-righteous justice will be served.

Will win: Martin Scorcese
Should win: Martin Scorcese

Best Lead Actor

How about that, I miss perhaps five major releases and more than half are represented by this category. I haven't seen Half Nelson, The Pursuit of Happyness, or The Last King of Scotland, so I'll go with the overwhelming consensus and say Forrest Whitaker will win.

I did see Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, and he definitely deserved the nomination. Would have deserved it for The Departed too. They weren't his first great performances however, and they won't be his last.

I'll go out on a limb and say Peter O'Toole should win. He's been a screen legend now for almost 50 years, has movies like Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lawrence of Arabia under his belt, and has been nominated seven times but never won. Sometimes there's an outcry or head-scratching when the honourary Oscars are announced, but the consensus with O'Toole's was "it's about bloody time!" with the man himself protesting he still had some good performances left in him yet. So why not give him an Oscar?

Will win: Forrest Whitaker
Should win: Peter O'Toole

Best Lead Actress

Ah... now here's an improvement over last year. Instead of two great performances and three middle-of-the-road paycheques in an overall weak year, we get five genuinely challenging roles performed by five genuinely talented actresses (I'm speculating with Kate Winslet in Little Children, which I haven't seen – the movie, not her talent). If any of them won, there would not be so much as a whisper of protest from my end.

But we all know Helen Mirren's gonna win. Not only has she picked up every major preliminary accolade, she played the Queen herself, dammit, and as everyone knows it's a hard role to play. Mirren's about 10 years younger than Elizabeth II, but she nailed her mannerisms perfectly, and The Queen, as a movie, deserves to win something. It'll probably be best actress.

Of the four performances I've seen, my personal favourite was that by Penelope Cruz in Volver. A lot of credit for her role, of course, must go to writer/director Pedro Almodovar (Helen Mirren should thank Peter Morgan, The Queen's screenwriter, too – the same cannot be said for Meryl Streep and Judi Dench, who both created terrific roles out of underwritten characters), but in Volver Cruz reveals herself as a formidable talent, and how wonderful it is to see her playing something beyond the pretty face – while simultaneously looking better than she has in any other role she's ever accepted.

Will win: Helen Mirren
Should win: Penelope Cruz

Best Supporting Actor

Anyone who's seen Dreamgirls, and hasn't seen Beverly Hills Cop, Bowfinger, 48 HRS, or reruns of early 80s Saturday Night Live recently, and who's been shocked to realize that yes, Eddie Murphy does still have talent (I'm not counting Mulan or the Shrek movies), knows that he deserves to win in this category. If anything maybe it'll give him enough clout again to keep him from doing another project like Norbit. Please dear god, no more projects like Norbit.

Will win: Eddie Murphy
Should win: Eddie Murphy

Best Supporting Actress

Likewise, anyone who's seen Dreamgirls knows that former American Idol contestant (She lost? Really?) Jennifer Hudson – WHO PLAYED THE FRICKIN' LEAD – walks away with the movie. (Hudson's probably grateful the producers tried to trick the Academy into thinking the lead was Beyoncé Knowles – she would have lost to Helen Mirren.)

Will win: Jennifer Hudson
Should win: Jennifer Hudson

Best Original Screenplay

The screenplay Oscars usually serve two uses: one, if the movie likely to win best picture is nominated in the given category, it wins as a validation that yes, the academy made the right choice; two, if the movie likely to win best picture isn't nominated in the given category, another movie that deserved to win big brings home the screenplay Oscar as a consolation prize.

There are years with exceptions – Cameron Crowe won a well-deserved award for Almost Famous the year Gladiator won best picture, for instance – however, I don't think this will be one of them. Hence, for the reasons I've written above, I think Babel will win for its fragmented, unfocused screenplay, even though I think Little Miss Sunshine's paint-by-numbers quirkiness did it one better. Letters From Iwo Jima, which crafted a movie about the proverbial "other side" from scratch and ended up creating a superior experience to Flags of Our Fathers, and The Queen, which created a compelling film out of one of the most boring concepts imaginable, would be far more deserving.

And then you have Pan's Labyrinth, which was apparently at least partly cribbed from Guillermo Del Toro's previous work, but created what is simultaneously a classic fairy tale, a stirring war picture, and a bitter indictment of totalitarian regimes. It had room for an endearing heroine, a chilling villain, some of the most inventive setpieces I've seen in ages, and, as those who have seen the movie know, just the right amount of ambiguity. Surely you're not surprised I think Pan's Labyrinth should win.

Will win: Babel
Should win: Pan's Labyrinth

Best Adapted Screenplay

Here's where the likely winner isn't competing. I think the winner of the consolation prize will be The Departed; as a remake it follows the plot established by the original (the brilliant, superior Infernal Affairs) almost to the letter (the places it doesn't – especially the ending – are where it screws up), but it adds loads of terrific dialogue, and an authentic-feeling Boston sound.

As for the others, I haven't seen Little Children, so I can't comment. Notes On A Scandal was a conventional screenplay with one great plot device – Barbara Covett (Judi Dench)'s written indictments of her students and co-workers – and one I don't really accept, carried by Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench's terrific performances. Borat, which was primarily improvised, doesn't deserve to be nominated in this category and I hope will be treated as such. (As one of the year's most admired films, however, I could see it being a dark-horse win.)

Children of Men, however, in addition to the great acting, directing, set design, cinematography, and whatever else made it on screen, owes more than a token of thanks to its focused screenplay, which never loses sight of its characters even as the future of England crumbles around them. It says something that I can still remember Theo Faron (Clive Owen), Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), Jasper (Michael Caine), Julian (Julianne Moore), Miriam (Pam Ferris), and Syd (Peter Mullan) almost as well as the unforgettable world they inhabit (except for Mullan, I didn't have to look up any of those names). Of course, I think Children of Men should have been nominated for best picture, best director, and best actor for Clive Owen. It was already robbed. How wonderful if it at least won for best screenplay.

Will win: The Departed
Should win: Children of Men

Best Foreign Film

I've only seen two – Pan's Labyrinth and Water. Water is a compelling story sunk by its heavy-handed message, and doesn't deserve the nomination, let alone a win. After The Wedding doesn't have enough buzz. Days of Glory has a chance, because it takes place during WWII, but technically so does Pan's Labyrinth.

I could see The Lives of Others winning, if it continues to build on its current-release hype; however, I don't think anyone can – or should – bury the juggernaut that is Pan's Labyrinth. It could have been nominated for best picture, and everyone knows it, but will have to settle for the best foreign Oscar.

The real film that should be winning this award is Volver, but it wasn't nominated in the first place.

Will win: Pan's Labyrinth
Should win: Pan's Labyrinth

Best Animated Film

This was a weak year for animation. Cars represents the most passion, the most effort, the most expertise. And it still fell short. C'est la vie.

Personally I think the best animated feature of the year was DreamWorks and Aardman Animation's Flushed Away. By not being nominated, it sets an unfortunate precedent for Aardman: the first major effort not to be nominated for (or win) an animated film/short Oscar (Chicken Run, which was created before the animated feature award, doesn't count).

Of the films nominated, only Happy Feet is worth seeing.

Will win: Cars
Should win: Happy Feet