Predicting the Oscar winners 2009

By Jonathan Fisher, February 9th, 2009

Note: As of writing this article, I'm a little behind on reviews. I still need to review Changeling, Transporter 3, Underworld 3 and The Spirit this week. A lot's been going on the last week in my world and I've been a little distracted. I promise I'll do better next time.

Considering I always emphasise how little the Oscars mean to me, and should mean to everyone, I get awfully excited at this time of year. Even in a year of lacklustre, play-it-safe nominations by the Academy like this one, I love following the ebbs and flows of the Oscar race, and trying to predict who will win, and if the true winner will match my heart's. I have quite a few gripes about this year's nominations, though, and I'll get them off my chest before predicting the major categories:

1. No Best Picture or Best Director nominations for The Dark Knight: I haven't yet seen The Reader, which I have heard is very good. From what I hear, its plot contains the Holocaust but it is not about it. But when it comes down to it, I don't think the Academy selected The Reader because it differentiates itself from the rest of the "Holocaust movie" canon. I think it partly had to do with the campaigning talent of producer Harvey Weinstein, and the (misplaced) unwillingness of the Academy to nominate a Batman film for the top honour. Not only is it ridiculous not to take a superhero movie seriously (is a movie any less of an achievement because it has characters named The Joker and Batman?), but The Dark Knight's omission is a major shot in the foot for an Academy Award ceremony that is sagging in ratings. Millions upon millions of people saw The Dark Knight and loved it -- people that would not otherwise be interested in the movie award season. Most fans of the movie will switch in to see Heath Ledger win the Best Supporting Actor award. More of them would have kept the television on to see if the film won Best Picture at the end of the night.

2. Wall*E was nominated for Best Animated Feature, and not Best Picture: Categories like "Best Foreign Language Film" and "Best Animated Film" annoy me. A movie is a movie. Wall*E was one of the best movies of 2008, not just one of the best 'animated films'. Its exclusion from the top category shows how out-of-touch and pointless the Academy Awards have become. I think it needs a radical reshaping in the next few years. And I won't even go into what is ridiculous about Waltz With Bashir being nominated in the documentary category...

3. Sally Hawkins was overlooked for Best Actress for Happy-Go-Lucky: All of the performances in the Best Actress category that I have seen are deserving. I haven't seen Melissa Leo (or even heard of her before her nomination), and I'm sure she is a terrific actress. But really, who saw Frozen River? Sally Hawkins won a Golden Globe for her wonderful performance as Poppy, and I rate it as the best female performance I saw in 2008. No offense to Melissa Leo (and I know I really should see her performance before saying this) -- but you're in Sally's spot!

4. Two of the three songs in the Best Song category are from Slumdog Millionaire: This is a minor quibble I have with the Academy. They seem to nominate two or three songs from the same film often in their picks (it happened last year -- three songs from Enchanted were nominated in a categor of five. This year the category is comprised of three songs, one from Wall*E and two from Slumdog Millionaire). It doesn't sit well with me (even though I loved A.R Rahman's soundtrack to Boyle's film, particularly the two nominees) for two reasons: it shows no imagination on the part of the Academy, and the nomination of two songs from the same film means that the voters will cancel out each other. For that reason, Thomas Newman and Peter Gabriel's song "Down to Earth" from Wall*E (which is a very cute song) is almost certain to win.

Now that I've gotten off my soapbox, time to predict the winners:

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. It's had an unfortunate backlash since it gained Oscar's attention, although most of the criticisms that I read or hear criticise the movie for what it isn't rather than what it is, and in doing so completely miss the point. I am a little nervous, though. Slumdog Millionaire is directed by a Briton, is partly in Hindi and doesn't have one American actor in the cast. Is the American Academy prepared to give a film this diverse Best Picture?

Best Actor in a Leading Role: I really hope that Mickey Rourke wins, but my money would be on Sean Penn for Milk. Milk was a much-loved film this year (myself included), and Penn's performance was outstanding. With Slumdog Millionaire the likely winner of Best Picture, Best Actor might be the way the Academy shows its appreciation.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: I haven't seen The Reader yet, but I think the 'it's time' factor will come into play for Kate Winslet, who also put in another Oscar-worthy performance in Revolutionary Road. Of all the performances I've seen that are nominated I think Merryl Streep in Doubt deserves to win the most, but she's been nominated what feels like hundreds of times and has won twice.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight. No contest. How sad it is that we won't see him sauntering up on stage and accepting the gong. Honourary mentions go to all four of the other nominees this year -- Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder, Josh Brolin in Milk and Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Just as it was last year, this is a very, very tough category to call. I honestly have no clear idea who will win. For some reason, my gut tells me Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I loved her performance in that film. Also a strong chance is Viola Davis in Doubt. The second time I saw the film I timed her performance -- nine minutes. If she wins it will be one of the shortest Oscar-winning performances in the history of the Academy.

Best Director: Danny Boyle had such a daunting task in directing Slumdog Millionaire -- working with children who spoke little English and filming in the physically draining Indian climate. He succeeded despite this obstacles and still managed to retain energy and joy in the movie's production.

Best Original Screenplay: Even though I have quibbles for Milk's Dustin Lance Black being nominated in the 'original screenplay' category (is history not material previously produced?), I was truly impressed with the dialogue and narrative structure of Milk. Sean Penn gets most of the plaudits for his performance as Harvey Milk. We forget that at one point, he had to read the character before creating it. If I could choose the winner of this category, though, my heart tells me Martin McDonagh's screenplay for In Bruges deserves to win. Some of the best dialogue I've heard in years.

Best Adapted Screenplay: It's a toss-up between Eric Roth's screenplay for Forrest Gump 2 -- oh, I mean The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. I'll put my money on Eric Roth's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It is another much-loved film that has been nominated for fistfuls of awards but probably won't take home any of the big ones. This category could be the one in which it gets recognition.

Best Cinematography: I always get a little erratic in the technical sections, but my pick here will be Wally Pfister for The Dark Knight.

Best Editing: Chris Dickens (that's quite ironic, considering the film has been compared by many, including myself, to a Dickens story) for Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt and Victor J. Zufro deserve recognition for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Along with the astounding make-up and special effects, the art direction was first-class.

Best Costume Design: It was a flop critically, but I believe that Catherine Martin for Australia deserves a nod for her costume work in Baz Luhrmann's audacious, overblown romance epic.

Best Make-up: If Greg Cannom does not win for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an injustice will have been done. Although Ledger's makeup in The Dark Knight by John Caglione and Conor O'Sullivan was pretty darn good, too.

Best Original Score: I love film music, and always keep an ear out for it when I'm watching a film. For me this year it's a toss-up between Thomas Newman for Wall*E and A.R. Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire. I'm going to go with A.R. Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Song: The two songs nominated from Slumdog Millionaire will cancel each other out, so the last man standing is Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman's "Down to Earth" from Wall*E.

Best Sound: As a technical achievement, Wall*E was a towering force in 2008. Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt lend their vast talents to Pixar's masterpiece wonderfully, and deserve an Oscar.

Best Sound Editing: Same goes here as in the Best Sound category: Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood deserve recognition for their work on Wall*E.

Best Visual Effects: Brad Pitt's face is imperceptibly and completely CGI for the first hour of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, thanks to Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron. If that doesn't deserve to win an Oscar I don't know what does.

Best Animated Film: I liked Kung Fu Panda and Bolt, but the winner here is clearly Wall*E.

Best Foreign Language Film: I haven't yet seen it, and I liked Waltz With Bashir a lot, but something tells me that Entre Les Murs (The Class) is going to get up.

Best Documentary: I actually have not seen quite a few of the nominees, although I am looking forward to. As faithful readers would know, I loved Man on Wire, so that gets my tick.

I'm getting progressively better at guessing the Oscars. In 2007 I predicted a meagre 51% of the winners, but last year I guessed 65%. I'm in the dark on quite a few of the categories this year, so I'm not sure that I'm going to better that. Enjoy the telecast if you choose to watch it. I'm planning to record it in the morning and watch it in the evening. My aim is to fast-forward through all of the bad comedy routines and filler and watch the entire ceremony in less than an hour.