Oscars Live Blog

Early Oscar Predictions

The Oscar nominees were announced yesterday. Once again I'm having a bit of a contest at my office to see who can pick the most winners. Things are a bit different this year with ten nominees in the Best Picture category, so it'll be a bit harder to pick the winner. Still, here are my early predictions, still subject to change as we see how the wind blows over the next few weeks.



Best Actor

Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the Air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

There's no huge stand-out here. I think Freeman having won in the supporting actor category in the past makes him a long shot, Firth's movie isn't as well known, and Clooney...well, I don't know. I'm sure the performance is great but remember back when it seemed like every other movie out had Gene Hackman in it? Clooney has taken over in that department, some folks are a bit tired of him. I think it comes down to Bridges and Renner. Since Bridges has been nominated four times in the past and never won, I think the little gold man is his this year. Having just won a Golden Globe doesn't hurt either.



Best Actress

Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Meryl Streep - Julie and Julia

Sidibe has an outside chance since the Academy often awards great performances by actresses in their first movie (Marlee Matlin, Jennifer Hudson). However, I think the battle is between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock. Streep can never be counted out, but I think the award goes to Bullock.



Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon - Invictus
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds

Here you have another two man battle. This one between the person many think SHOULD win, and the one who probably WILL win. Who should win? I think most would say Waltz as the main baddie of Quentin Tarrantino's latest. However, in Plummer you have a 50-year veteran of the film industry who has never been nominated before. The Academy would be honoring his whole career with a win this year. My pick would be Plummer.



Best Supporting Actress

Penelope Cruz - Nine
Vera Farminga - Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal - Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick - Up in the Air
Mo'Nique - Precious

Nothing's for sure, but this may be the easiest one to pick. It's never good to have two actresses nominated in the same category for the same movie. So Farminga and Kendrick cancel each other out. Gyllenhaal doesn't seem to have the buzz the others do so she's a long shot. Cruz has won this award recently, and besides, "Nine" has not exactly been greeted with rave reviews. Mo'Nique gets it not just by process of elimination, but from what I understand, her performance is truly one of the best of the year.



Best Director

James Cameron - Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino - Inglorious Basterds
Lee Daniels - Precious
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air

Did you know Cameron and Bigelow were once husband and wife? Well they'll be battling it out again, as it would appear they are the front runners. This award is so closely tied to the Best Picture award (get there in a minute), right now it's hard to say how things will go. But I think, even if another film goes away with the top prize, Cameron's innovation on "Avatar" will lead him to his 2nd directing Oscar.



Best Picture

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

No lie, with 10 films instead of 5 it's harder to pick...and could lead to an upset. I think there are 3 films that have the best chance. "Avatar" dominated the technical categories and is a true movie milestone..."The Hurt Locker" has had almost unanimous critical praise and since it's about the Iraq war some voter may feel they are making a statement by placing their vote with it...and the safe choice for voters "Up in the Air." Anything could happen, but I think enough voters are still amazed enough with "Avatar" to lead it to the win.

I'll probably change my mind on some of this...the awards are March 7.

Academy Awards Live Blog

Oscar Predictions

This weekend is the 81st annual Academy Awards. Just like last year I will be trying to live blog the event through coveritlive.com. So, be sure to come back here Sunday night for my live thoughts as the awards progress.

In the meantime, here is the way I'm leaning on the top 6 awards (the four acting awards, director, and best picture). Keep in mind, this isn't necessarily who I want to win, but who I think will win.

Best Actor:
-Richard Jenkins: The Visitor
-Frank Langella: Frost/Nixon
-Sean Penn: Milk
-Brad Pitt: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler

A lot of folks are starting to lean toward Sean Penn, but I think Mickey Rourke still has the edge. Many say this is one of the best performances they've ever seen, plus he's already won several awards...I'm picking Rourke.

Best Actress:
-Anne Hathaway: Rachel Getting Married
-Angelina Jolie: Changeling
-Melissa Leo: Frozen River
-Meryl Streep: Doubt
-Kate Winslet: The Reader

This I think is the one major category where I'm changing my mind from my initial thoughts on the day the nominations were announced. Back then I was picking Anne Hathaway, but momentum has been gaining for both Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet. What's odd is that Winslet won a Golden Globe for her role in "The Reader" but in their supporting actress category. I think right now Winslet has the upper hand. She is my pick...at least for now.

Best Supporting Actor:
-Josh Brolin: Milk
-Robert Downey Jr.: Tropic Thunder
-Philip Seymour Hoffman: Doubt
-Heath Ledger: The Dark Knight
-Michael Shannon: Revolutionary Road

With all due respect to the other actors in this category, this award was wrapped up on July 14th...when "The Dark Knight" slammed onto screens. A posthumous Oscar for Mr. Ledger it will be.

Best Supporting Actress:
-Amy Adams: Doubt
-Penelope Cruz: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
-Viola Davis: Doubt
-Taraji P. Henson: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Marisa Tomei: The Wrestler

There is no real obvious standout in this category, but we can employ some science to this. The two actresses from "Doubt" will cancel each other out and Benjamin Button just doesn't seem to have any buzz in the acting categories. So the battle is really between Cruz and Tomei. Tomei could have a few strikes against her as there is still the urban legend out there that Jack Palance read the wrong name when he announced she had won the Oscar for her performance in "My Cousin Vinny" years ago. Plus, supporting actresses in Woody Allen films (Diane Wiest, Mira Sorvino) have done well at Oscar time in the past. I'm picking Cruz, but Tomei could surprise.

Best Director & Best Picture

-David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon
-Gus Van Sant for Milk
-Stephen Daldry for The Reader
-Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

I list these two together only because for the first time in a looooong time, the directors of all five Best Picture nominees were nominated. So the two categories match. Plus, I think the two awards will remain linked when the envelopes are opened with Danny Boyle and Slumdog Millionaire taking the prize.

I could always change my mind before Sunday night, but join me here for the live blog on Sunday night to see how I did.

Some Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

Bright and early this morning, the nominees for the 81st Annual Academy Awards were announced. Being a big movie fan, I always enjoy trying to figure out who the winners will be. In fact, the last several years I have held a contest at my office to see who can guess the most winners. The one who gets the most right wins a couple of movie passes.

There are always surprises with the nominations, and of course disappointing snubs. Here are a few of my thoughts after this morning's announcement.

- Academy Voters Belong in Arkham Asylum

"The Dark Knight" did not get a Best Picture nomination this morning. And thus this becomes the biggest crime in the history of the Oscars, replacing the infamous incident of a few years back when "Happy Feet" won for Best Animated Feature. I really don't understand what makes the Academy voters feel that they have to vote for more lofty films. Why can't a film that was a great work of art also be a huge crowd-pleasing summer action movie as well. I mean, who do these people think they are? The Oscars are voted on by industry folks, the same folks that bring you such highbrow pics as "Dude, Where's My Car." Just who are they trying to impress here. I certainly haven't seen every movie of 2008, but of what I have seen "The Dark Knight" is the best movie of the year. The snub of Christopher Nolan in the best director category is almost as bad.

- Danny Elfman finally gets some Academy Love

Danny Elfman is my favorite film composer. Every since I first saw "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," which was his first big score, I have been intrigued by his unique style. Amazingly, his nomination this morning for composing the score for "Milk" is only his 4th nomination in over 20 years of film scoring. His work on films like "Edward Scissorhands," "Beetlejuice," and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was certainly deserving. But here is another example of a weird Academy quirk...we tend to see more nominations for the scores of dramatic films than for fantasy or action films. This is totally bizarre since, in my opinion, the art of film scoring is at it's best in these genres. When I saw that Elfman was scoring "Milk," a drama about openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, I had a feeling the Academy might finally take note of him.

- The Whoville Oscar Party has Officially been Cancelled

It was a great year for animated films. "Wall-E" was another great film from Pixar, though I think it's a tad bit overrated, "Kung Fu Panda" was a fantastic surprise, and "Bolt" was a lot better than I expected. These three films earned their nominations, but I was very disappointed to see this year's first great animated feature, "Horton Hears a Who," ignored. I said at the time it was released that I felt it may be the best non-Pixar computer animated feature to date. It's certainly the best film adaptation of Dr. Seuss' work so far. Unfortunately, the number of animated feature nominees is based on the number of eligible films released during the year. On rare occasion, it's only happened once, five films get nominated. But this year there were just three, so Horton got snubbed.

- The Best Picture and Best Director Categories Match!

One of the interesting phenomena of the Oscars is that usually the Best Director nominees are off by one when compared with the Best Picture nominees. This usually leads to people making snide remarks like "Well, I guess 'Driving Miss Daisy' must have directed itself." But for once, the directors of the five best picture nominees were all nominated for Best Director.

Well, the awards are presented Feb 22. Just like last year, I think I will try to live blog the event. Have fun trying to pick the winners.

Movie Montage

One of the best parts of the annual Oscar broadcast is the movie montages. I know, I'm a sap, but those silly montages remind of why I love movies so much. In exploring YouTube this evening I ran across a person who has done a bunch of his own montages to salute the work of various filmmakers. Among those "barringer82" has created are tributes to Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton, David Lynch, and Quentin Tarantino. The guy is quite talented, so enjoy this one that highlights the work of the Coen Brothers.

Movie Commercials to be allowed during Oscar Broadcast

I'm not a football fan, I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Now, the Academy Awards, that I take a great deal of interest in. But here's the thing, for ages the academy has not allowed any commercials for movies to air during the Oscar telecast. A stupid move in my opinion. All these years where they've been complaining that movie ticket sales keep going down, and on the night where you have the biggest world-wide audience of movie fans all watching the same thing on TV you don't show any movie commercials!?! Well, finally the ban has been lifted, though with some restrictions...such as no ads for prequels or sequels of any movie up for an award. So don't expect to see an ad for "Harold and Kumar Save Christmas" during this year's show.

Check out more about how the academy suddenly grew a brain here.

Note: I made up that movie title but if some Hollywood genius pitches that to a studio, I do expect a check.

Oscar Live Blog

I enjoyed live blogging the Super Bowl commercials last week, even though I doubt anyone actually watched me blog it live. Anyhow, that was kind of an experiment to gear up for live blogging the Oscars coming up in a little more than a week. So tune in here on Feb 24 for the live Oscar night blog. You can follow along with me and see how I do on my predictions.

Picking the Oscar Winners

The 80th Annual Academy Awards are coming up on Feb 24. As usual, I haven't seen very many of the nominated films at this point, but it's always fun to try and pick the winners. I usually do pretty well picking the winners of the big six categories (Best Picture, Best Director, and the four acting awards), but this year there is no clear cut front runner in several of the categories. Almost all of these awards have at least two strong possibilities.

The one major exception this year is Best Actor. Here are the nominees:

- George Clooney in Michael Clayton
- Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
- Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
- Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Daniel Day-Lewis has got this one locked up. The buzz on his performance is just about the strongest any actor has received in the last 20 years. Of course the last time I said that an Oscar win was a sure thing was predicting "Cars" would win Best Animated Feature last year. Curse you "Happy Feet."

The rest of the categories aren't so simple to pick. Take Best Supporting Actor, just a few weeks ago everyone was saying that other hopefuls should just stand back, let Javier Bardem and his cattle gun take home the award for "No Country for Old Men," and hopefully nobody gets hurt in the process. But wait, enter Hal Holbrook's performance from "Into the Wild." The veteran of film's such as "All the President's Men", and "The Star Chamber" has received a lot of buzz and he's got age on his side. He's 83 years old and never been nominated before. Age and a long history in the film industry can be a factor, especially in the supporting actor categories. Just look at Sean Connery's win for "The Untouchables," Dom Ameche's win for "Cocoon," or even Alan Arkin's win last year for "Little Miss Sunshine."

Over in the Best Supporting Actress category, age is also a factor. Ruby Dee, also 83, is nominated for her performance in "American Gangster." The favorite, up to this point, has been Cate Blanchett for playing one of several versions of Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There." But Blanchett has won in this category before (for "The Aviator") and she is also nominated in the Best Actress category for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." So she may cancel herself out. Combine that with Ruby Dee's recent Screen Actors Guild Award win, and the age factor, it's a tough race to call.

Over in the Best Actress category you have Julie Christie's performance as an Alzheimers's patient in "Away From Her" generating a lot of talk. Christie is only 66, but that's a lot more than closest competitior, Ellen Page from "Juno," who turns 21 just a few days before the awards are presented. Christie seemed to be the early favorite, but "Juno" is the film that everyone is talking about, and Page, who previous to this was best known for playing a junior superhero in the last X-Men movie, is the source of a lot of that talk.

Things are no easier over in the Best Director and Best Picture categories. In these fields the battle rages between Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," and the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men." For Best Picture, the stronger buzz seems to be with "There Will Be Blood." Over in the directing category the Coens have 24 years of great films on there side compared to PTA's filmography of four films, including offerings such as "Magnolia," which some people hated as much as others loved. Really both categories could go either way.

All that having been said, here are my choices as of 7:00 PM Mountain Time, Feb 11, 2008.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress: Ellen Page
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett
Best Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Best Picture: There Will Be Blood

I may change my mind before the broadcast. A lot can happen between now and then.