Pointless Oscar predictions!!!

Short post today:

Best Picture: No Country For Old Men
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Best Actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her)
Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)
Best Screenplay (Original): Diablo Cody (Juno)
Best Screenplay (Adapted): Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy)
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)
Best Editing: Roderick Jaynes (No Country For Old Men)
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins (No Country For Old Men)
Best Animated Feature: Ratatoullie (Brad Bird)
Best Documentary: No End in Sight

All the other technical and music awards I have no idea...I am sure that song from Once will win for best song, and I am sure that No Country For Old Men will some other technical awards...but as far as short films and the like...I have no clue.

There are my predictions, I'll watch just to see how many I got right...as long as the ceremony doesn't take 5 hours. And no Whoopi please...who's hosting this thing anyway?

Who I think will win and who I want to win are two different stories. I would like to see Ellen Page win for Best Actress, and I would like to see (even though Day-Lewis was amazing) George Clooney win for Michael Clayton, one of my very favorite movies of the year.

This really feels like one of those years where they spread the love with the awards. I remember when Steven Soderbergh won Best Director for Traffic, and I was so stoked because I thought maybe it could win Best Picture, too. But it lost out to the giant turd known as Gladiator.

Lucky for us, this year doesn't have a giant turd of a movie like that nominated. It looks like the Academy did a wise thing and nominated some dark and unconventional films. So I think that they reward Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood, much like they rewarded Soderbergh for Traffic. I would have thought that Atonement was a sure thing for the Oscar, but it has little to no buzz going in, and the very opposite and very American, No Country For Old Man has stolen all of its early season thunder. Which is good. It would be too easy for the Academy to give the award to a ready-made picture like Atonement (which I liked quite a bit), which is like The English Patient, circa 2007. When you watch the movie it just screams Best Picture Oscar...but I am glad that the more ambiguous and darker No Country For Old Men seems to be the current front runner.

I want No Country to win all of the technical awards, and I wouldn't be surprised if it does. Although, Atonement or There Will Be Blood could steal some away.

The biggest losers of the night are the Documentary and Animated Feature categories. The people that nominate titles for this category (I have a feeling) don't even watch the movies, but look at box office numbers to decide for them. No End in Sight was a great documentary, and Sicko was average, but to not nominate Into Great Silence! That is a crime. (Although, one doc I haven't seen, Taxi to the Dark Side, is supposed to be amazing...)

And then to the geniuses who nominate the animated features: do you even know what good animation is? I mean, I guess it doesn't matter because whenever Brad Bird has an animated feature up for an award, he'll win every time, but still...to nominate Surf's Up over The Simpson's movie may be one of the biggest blunders I have ever seen from the nomination committee. Surf's Up was an average movie at best with average animation, whereas The Simspon's Movie, looked like a big screen animated feature, not something you could get for free on cable tv.

Sad.

Oh well...there are my pointless Oscar predictions for 2007!!!

Labels: Film, Random Blogging