Oscar Picks: Calling the Shots for Oscar Night

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas time -Oscar time! And while I’ve already explained my love/hate relationship with award shows, I can’t deny the fact that I get tingly all over when this time of year rolls around and it will reach its climax on March 7 when the Academy Awards air on ABC.

As a lead up to the big night, I’d like to take a look at the nominees and give a little run down of what I think is going to happen, what should happen, and what I hope to God doesn’t happen.

Best Picture

Not since 1943 has this category seen ten nominees and boy is it wreaking havoc on making predictions. Essentially this is a two picture race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker and with The Hurt Locker winning a brunt of the critical and guild awards so far, it would normally be the easy winner. It must not be forgotten though that the Academy really likes to honor EPIC films and Avatar certainly fits that bill. It is already the highest grossing film of all time and has fanatics everywhere not to mention the fact that the new ten nominee system is meant to favor populist films like Avatar over critical darlings like The Hurt Locker. But that’s where things get really complicated – with the new number of nominees comes a new system of voting. Instead of voters simply picking their favorite, they must now rank the ten nominees in order of preference and the one with the highest score wins. This could mean nothing, BUT if a certain film is consistently ranked 3^rd or 4^th over the more sporadically chosen top spots, it could muster a high enough score to take it all and the film most likely to do that is the much-loved but non-traditional “Oscar film” Inglourious Basterds. If this happens you will surely hear my celebratory cries no matter where you live. You’ve been warned.

Who Will Win: Avatar

My Personal Favorite Dream Winner: Inglourious Basterds

Nightmare Scenario: The Blind Side

Best Actor

The nominees: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), George Clooney (Up in the Air), Colin Firth (A Single Man), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

Most of the acting categories this year are actually pretty straight forward no-brainers but surprises are always possible! For Best Actor the clear front-runner is Jeff Bridges for his role as a down and out country singer. Bridges is a fantastic actor and will win this as a culmination of his stunning career with no previous wins from four prior nominations.  Clooney or Renner are the only others with potential to upset but it’s unlikely.

Who Will Win: Jeff Bridges and I couldn’t agree more

Best Actress

The nominees: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

This is where things get ugly for me and I apologize in advance if you’re a big fan but I really, really don’t like Sandra Bullock. I find her performances obnoxious and most of her movies unwatchable. The Blind Side itself is the kind of trite, emotionally forced film that makes my skin crawl BUT it was a huge hit and unlike me, a lot of people really like her so I’m fairly certain she is a lock to win this. Meryl Streep may have the power to overcome the Bullock juggernaut but my real enthusiasm lies with Gabourey Sidibe and her amazingly strong performance in Precious. She was a complete knockout and deserves any and all accolades to come her way.

Who Will Win/Nightmare Scenario: Sandra Bullock

My Personal Favorite Dream Winner: Gabourey Sidibe

Best Supporting Actor

I really don’t even know why anyone other than Christoph Waltz is even nominated in this category. They should mail him the Oscar right now because he is frankly phenomenal and I can’t wait to see more of him. Anyone else hope he walks up to the podium and yells, “That’s a bingo!”?

Who Will Win/Dream Scenario: Christoph Waltz

Nightmare Scenario: Anyone else

Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees: Penelope Cruz (Nine), Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), and Mo’Nique (Precious)

We can only hope Mo’Nique wins this because she may very well throw a TV at any voter who opts for one of these other ladies. But in all seriousness she deserves this more than any of them for what I consider to be the performance of the year. Her work in the film was terrifying, unexpected and truly deserving.

Who Will Win/Dream Scenario: Mo’Nique

Nightmare Scenario: Anyone else

Best Director

The Nominees: James Cameron (Avatar), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Lee Daniels (Precious), and Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)

And now for the drama. This category’s two front-runners used to be married so talk about War of the Roses! James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow both have equal chance to win here and since the Academy rarely splits between the Director and Best Picture awards, expect whoever wins this to see their film take the top honor as well. That technically means I should put my money on Cameron but I have hunch this could be one of those rare years with a split and the Academy will for the first time honor a woman in this category (only three have ever been nominated) for the insanely tense The Hurt Locker.

Who Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow

My Personal Favorite Dream Winner: Quentin Tarantino

Best Animated Film

I think there is absolutely no question that Up will win this. It was a beautiful and wonderfully entertaining film that I loved from start to finish and going into it, I expected no less. That being said, the animated film that really blew me away this year was Fantastic Mr. Fox. Watching Wes Anderson’s amazing stop-motion animation was almost mind-blowing for me and I was smiling the entire way through. Not nearly enough people saw it and it could never topple the unstoppable Pixar machine, but it definitely deserves a look and plenty of kudos.

Who Will Win: Up

My Personal Favorite Dream Winner: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Nightmare Scenario: The Secret of Kells – how could a film no one has heard of topple the two masterpieces listed above?

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Nominees: District 9, An Education, In the Loop, Precious, and Up in the Air

The screenplay category is typically where much loved films that don’t have a good shot at winning Best Picture usually come out on top. This year that honor will probably go to Up in the Air, which started out the awards season as a Best Picture front-runner but quietly fell to the back of the pack. Sheldon Turner and Jason Reitman’s script was an fascinating look at our times and well-deserving but its hard not to root for the foul-mouthed British wit of In the Loop.

Who Will Win: Up in the Air

My Personal Favorite Dream Winner: In the Loop

Nightmare Scenario: District 9 – I really don’t feel like this one lives up to the hype.

Best Original Screenplay

Say what you want about Quentin Tarantino, but the man can write. His scripts are as fun to read as they are to watch on film so why shouldn’t he win this?! The Hurt Locker may be able to sneak out a victory based on its Best Picture prospects but that film was more about creating tension on screen, but Tarantino is a wizard of words with dialogue that comes out almost like music. To ignore that artistry would be a crime.

Who Will Win/Dream Scenario: Inglourious Basterds

Nightmare Scenario: Anything else

Technical Categories Likely to be Swept by Avatar

Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects (duh).

My Predictions to Win Everything Else

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon

Best Documentary: The Cove

Makeup: Star Trek – It’s gotta get some love somewhere, right?

Original Score: Up – I was humming that music for days.

Original Song: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart – I still think this category should be abolished but that’s a whole other article.

Editing: The Hurt Locker – Those bomb defusing scenes are a masterly example of editing for maximum tension.

Costume Design: Coco Before Chanel – Can a film about one of the world’s greatest fashion designers really lose this?

So there you have it. Those are my predictions! Only a few days will tell if Hollywood agrees with me but let me know what you think by commenting below. I will be tweeting live during the Oscar broadcast with reactions to the awards as they happen @poptimal and @mattdegroot so please join in on the conversation!

Come back every day to see our staff Oscar picks in the featured video section.