I will be posting my final Oscar predictions tomorrow. Right now I am sorting through the guild winners from the past ten years, looking for patterns, suggestions, anything that would help me sort things out.
Then there’s the gut instinct. The memories of previous years where I went against the grain, picked a winner I knew would be perceived as a surprise. Going into the show you have confidence in such a loner prediction. “I’ll show them, I knew this all along.” Then, once that category comes up the buzzer goes off in your head. “Doh!” You already know you picked the wrong one. After all, this is the Academy we’re talking about. Not a group of tastemakers, but a group that’s rather set in their ways. They like what they like. Forward thinking has never been their MO.
And so the battle seems to have come down to The Social Network versus The King’s Speech for Best Picture. Any knowledge of the Academy’s voting habits at this point tells us The King’s Speech is a lock at this point. But that is only half the battle. Academy wisdom works against us elsewhere.
We’ll begin with Best Director. Many are saying David Fincher is due, but how do you argue against 63 years of Directors Guild history in which only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the winner not gone on to win Best Director at the Oscars. Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) won this year and I have a feeling putting Fincher on your ballot will give you those “Doh!” gut feelings I was just talking about.
Even more confusing when looking at Best Picture and Best Director you look at Best Film Editing, an award often tied with the two others as they have shown considerable similarities over the last few years. However, these last few years have been something of an irregularity. Sure, six of the last eight films to win Best Editing also went on to win Best Picture, but add a few years onto that stat and you end up with only 20 of the last Best Editing winners to go on to win the Best Picture over the last 40 years. 75% over the short term is one thing, but 50% over the long term is a bit more telling. This year The Social Network won with the American Cinema Editors, I will be sticking with that for my Oscar prediction, but it won’t change my Best Picture prediction.
I’m also trying to sort out a few below the line predictions, such as the sound categories where I currently have Inception winning both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Only three times in the last ten years has one film won both awards (The Hurt Locker, The Bourne Ultimatum and King Kong). Over the weekend the Cinema Audio Society voted True Grit the best sound mixing of the year and then the Motion Picture Sound Editors voted Inception for editing. A safe bet is probably to split the vote, but I think I’m going to stick with Inception for both. After all, the last ten years haven’t proven too accurate for either the MPSE or CAS with four-out-of-ten and three-out-of-ten of their respective winners going on to win the Oscar.
In the acting categories there has been a lot of chatter recently surrounding the female categories, primarily due to the case of Melissa Leo (The Fighter) taking out her own For Your Consideration advertising, a move many are speculating may have been a bad move for the Best Supporting Actress front-runner, potentially opening the door for The King’s Speech‘s Helena Bonham Carter to add to the front-runner’s overall tally. At the same time, there continues to be a small amount of support for a potential Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) win, and that would be a surprise win I’m sure not many would complain about.
There has also been talk of an Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right) upset over Natalie Portman (Black Swan). This isn’t exactly new chatter, I’ve been discussing this for some time, even having gone to Bening as my front-runner prior to the Screen Actors Guild Awards. It was Portman’s win there and her continued winning in the precursors that had me switch back and I’m not changing again.
Beyond that, I think it comes down to how much confidence you have in The King’s Speech being a true juggernaut. If you think it will dominate do you give it Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing and Original Score wins? Do you think it’s going to be a rather evenly matched year with Speech taking majors such as Picture and Director and several contenders picking up awards elsewhere? Or, do you predict the unpredictable, a massive The Social Network shocker where it takes Picture, Director, Editing and even a few unexpected below-the-line nods?
Speak up in the comments and prepare your predictions. Tomorrow I’ll reveal mine and then over the last few days of the week I’ll be posting polls for you to vote on your predictions before this Sunday’s 83rd Annual Academy Awards where myself and Laremy will be bringing you a tandem live-blog, hopefully blowing your mind in the process. Stay tuned!
If you need a refresher on what films have been nominated you can click here and for a list of my predictions at this very moment you can click here but I suspect one or two of them will be changing in the next 24 hours. I’m primarily waiting on that Costume Directors Guild winner later tonight to give me a little assistance.
Finally, before you go, enjoy this:
