Friday, March 28, 2008

Let the Embarrassment Begin!

Without further ado, here are my first predictions for the nominations (and winners in bold) in the Big Eight for our next Academy Awards...

(note: I will predict Benicio only if his films come out in different years...otherwise I think the prospect of vote splitting is way too high)

Best Picture
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Director
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Steven Spielberg, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Harrison Ford, Crossing Over
Jamie Foxx, The Soloist
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Viggo Mortensen, The Road

Best Actress
Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Julianne Moore, Blindness
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin, Milk
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
John Malkovich, Burn After Reading
Michael Sheen, Frost/Nixon

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Kathy Bates, Revolutionary Road
Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Viola Davis, Doubt
Carice van Houten, Body of Lies

Best Original Screenplay
Burn After Reading
Hamlet 2
Milk
Synecdoche, New York
WALL-E

Best Adapted Screenplay
Body of Lies
Doubt

Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road

5 comments:

Marcy said...

I think Doubt will be critically-acclaimed for its script and performances, but I don't think it will win Best Picture. In the Best Picture category, a film like The Reader will most likely shine.

There's a good chance that someone from the cast of Crossing Over will be nominated, but I don't think it's going to be Harrison Ford.

For the best actress category, I think the academy would rather recognize someone who has been showing years of fine work (Moore, Winslet) than to give it to a two-time Oscar-winner like Streep. But the Oscars love her, so she has a good chance.

From what I've read, WALL-E has very little dialogue in a huge chunk of the first few scenes. Plus, it being animated hurts its chances. I think the academy would rather recognize a dialogue-heavy film for this category.

The Awards Prognosticator said...

I agree with marcy on "Doubt"'s chances. I think it will probably be this year's "Little Children" or "Notes on a Scandal"; acting and writing nominations, but nothing for directing or best picture.

Check out The Oscar Nazi for year-round predictions and analysis.

Anonymous said...

Both of your comments are totally valid. I picked "Doubt", after MUCH hesitation, as (mainly) an upset winner. And I think that it'll mainly be a strong acting showcase (for Streep, Davis, Adams, and Hoffman) that carries its film into the Best Picture race (not in the vein of Crash but in the vein of Kramer vs Kramer)...and I think that it might be time for the Academy to embrace one of those in the Best Picture category.

Anonymous said...

Oh, and I picked "WALL-E" because I think that the lack of dialogue, actually, could launch it into the frontrunner position.

Marcy said...

Hmm, I'm still doubtful about WALL-E's chances in any of the main categories. It seems like so many people are predicting that it's going to dominate the major categories while I think it's only going to be recognized in the animation and technical categories.

The only winner of the original screenplay category in the past few years that had minimal dialgoue was Lost in Translation. That film was also 2003's low-budget darling, which seems like a prerequisite to win in the category.