Oscar Predictions - 2010
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 09:58
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- I may still change this before Sunday, but here's what I'm thinking for now.
- The Big Eight
- Best Picture: The King's Speech. I would love for it to be The Social Network, but I just don't think it has the votes it needs.
- Best Director: David Fincher. Picture/Director splits aren't common, but they're fairly common when your Best Picture is directed by someone as inexperienced as Tom Hooper. I really hope the Academy will honor Fincher on this one.
- Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech. Sorry Mike Leigh, your script was better, but this is a King's Speech year.
- Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
- Best Lead Actor: Colin Firth
- Best Lead Actress: Natalie Portman
- Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale
- Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld. Much as I love Melissa Leo, who sort of seems like a frontrunner, she kinda shot herself in the foot recently by overtly campaigning for herself (I know it's stupid for the Academy to react against this, but what can you do?), and I'm kind of feeling like they'll want to give one of these big awards to True Grit, since it did receive a whopping 10 nominations. Enter Steinfeld, the heart and soul of the film.
- These suckers:
- Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
- Best Foreign Film: Incendies. I really have no idea. I feel like some people are picking In a Better World because it won the Globe, and some people are picking Biutiful because it was nominated for Best Actor. But lots of people are picking Incendies despite the fact that it hasn't won anything and I had never heard of it before the noms were announced. I feel like they must know something that I don't. So I picked it too.
- Best Documentary Feature: Exit Through the Gift Shop. Inside Job seems like the frontrunner, but the Academy is hip occasionally, like when they awarded Three Six Mafia. Exit also has a really cool non-campaign and just won the ACE award, so to me it seems like it's on the upswing.
- Tech awards:
- Best Art Direction: The King's Speech
- Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins. He's overdue, and I liked his cinematography on True Grit, but he's done much better before. Kind of a shame that this is what he's probably finally winning for.
- Best Costumes: The King's Speech
- Best Editing: The Social Network
- Best Makeup: The Wolfman
- Best Sound Mixing: Inception
- Best Sound Editing: Inception
- Best Visual Effects: Inception
- Music awards:
- Best Score: The King's Speech. Sorry Trent, your score was better, but this is a King's Speech year.
- Best Song: "We Belong Together"
- The damnable shorts (I never get any of these right, so you should probably pick any three shorts that I'm not predicting)
- Best Documentary Short: Poster Girl
- Best Animated Short: The Gruffalo
- Best Live Action Short: God of Love
Cloned From:
The key to Oscar prediction is knowing when to predict upsets and when not to. I was way off this year, predicting upsets when I shouldn't have (Documentary, Supporting Actress) and NOT predicting upsets when I should have (Cinematography, Director kind of). I also fell into the trap of thinking that The King's Speech, with its wealth of guild awards and 12 nominations, would win a good number of awards at the Oscars, which led me astray on Costume Design, Art Direction, and Score.
As usual, I had no idea what to pick for Foreign Film or the shorts, but at least I guessed one of the shorts right this year.
I really thought Tom Hooper was far too inexperienced to win Best Director. When it comes to his level of establishment in the entertainment industry, he's one of the biggest novices to ever win this award, about on par with Delbert Mann winning. But I should know by now that the Academy votes for the top awards with their hearts and not their brains. For the past few years, none of the major contenders affected their hearts, so they picked smart films. But The King's Speech moved them, and Tom Hooper needed to be awarded for doing so.
So the very good The King's Speech wins four major awards and no tech; the best film of the year walks away with three well-deserved awards for Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score; True Grit goes down as one of the biggest Oscar losers of all time; Roger Deakins remains overdue and will hopefully win in a year when he actually deserves it; and I stop following the Oscar season for at least six months. Sound good? Okay.
As for the ceremony itself, I loved that they put the Best Song performances back in and cut a lot of the extraneous bullshit out. No lame montages, no introducing the Best Picture nominees during the show, and no having five random actors ramble on about the five nominated performers. Thank God. Still they managed to run very long, partially because of the super-extended ramblings of Kirk Douglas and Melissa Leo, both of whom were absolutely hilarious and probably the highlights of the night. Douglas was weird as hell and cracked me up, and Melissa Leo's win was heart-warming. Say the f-word, Melissa. You earned it.
The hosts were terribly awkward, although I did love the opening Inception parody. It was like they didn't know how to comport themselves while performing live. Other than that, I really dug Robert Downey Jr. That man should host next year. Seriously.