The oscar nominations come out tomorrow morning/afternoon (depending on what timezone you’re in). For whatever reason, Oscar viewing has become required for my finance and I. Most years we try to see all the best picture nominees and for the last two years we have hosted an oscar party. Our invitations for our third party went out early this year. Before tomorrow’s nominees are announced, here’s what I think are locks to get nominations. Granted, I haven’t seen all the films in question – but I’m doing a better job than I usually do.
Wall-e/Kung-Fu Panda are locks for the animation award. This is pretty much a guarantee. Let me move on to more risky selections e.g. – a field where there are more options to choose from.
Downey Jr./Heath Ledger are locks for best supporting actor. Black face that doesn’t start a protest and a face that gives a continually haunting performance = good. Who will fill out the other three spots will be determined by what happens in the other categories.
Clint Eastwood/Mickey Rourke are locks in best actor. I’m not convinced about Sean Penn (again), although I didn’t see Milk. I might get around to seeing it – but its not on my must see list. The critique I’ve heard about Penn in his role is all about cognitive dissonance, which makes some sense to me. I think one of the leads from Frost/Nixon is likely to get a nod, but which goes where – I have no idea. I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know but the movie is high on my list of movies to see (it’s actually number one).
I’m quite clueless when it comes to this year’s actress nominees. I haven’t seen Benjamin Button, Changeling, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, Rachel Getting Married or any of those other films. None of those movies appeal to me.
For Best Picture, I’m willing to go on a limb and attempt to pick all five: The Dark Knight, Gran Torino, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, and Benjamin Button. The only one I’m not sure about is Button. Best Picture nominees tend to be less sensitive to the “artsy” feel that most of the other nominations usually have – Titanic and Rocky are best pictures for example. And despite being the highest grossing movie of all time (how, is still beyond me – you knew the boat was going to sink from the beginning), Titanic sucked! Since The Dark Knight is the number two grossing film of all time, has no CGI, and is a completely engrossing story from comic book literature it is likely to get nominated. I think Gran Torino is also likely to get nominated because of late game box office success and Clint Eastwood is oscar magic. With this being potentially one of his last films, I think the praise is as likely to fall on him as producer/director, as it to fall on him for his acting. My sense of things comes from reading things online and the movies I’ve seen. I think Milk has lost momentum and other films are gaining. That and the people who are likely to like films like Milk are also likely to like Slumdog, Button, and others.
Best Director – these are usually the second place awards to the Best Picture. Think Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. Christopher Nolan is likely to get one for The Dark Knight, Eastwood for Torino, and the director for Slumdog. Since Oscar has this weird thing about not honoring foreign films – expect Slumdog to get a nomination here.
To clarify, I’ve seen: Wall-E, The Dark Knight, The Wrestler, Gran Torino, and Tropic Thunder. Granted that’s not enough (no Button/Milk/Rev Road/others) to make a full scale prediction – but half of these films just made it to Madison.
On top of my wish list to see: Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. If I’m about a smarter than average movie goer (appreciates good acting, loves good commercial films and hates the bad ones), then my choice of things to see might be a decent predictor of what’s to come tomorrow and month later.
