final oscar predictions!

I know my blogging has been virtually non-existent this Oscar season, but that doesn't mean I'm devoid of excitement for the big day today.  So in the spirit of getting it officially on paper, here are my predictions for tonight's big contest:



Best Picture: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin
Best Actress: Viola Davis
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life
Best Costume Design: Hugo
Best Film Editing: The Artist
Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Art Direction: Hugo
Best Makeup: Albert Nobbs
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay: A Separation
Best Foreign Film: A Separation
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Best Original Score: The Artist
Best Original Song: "Man or Muppet"
Best Sound Mixing: Moneyball
Best Sound Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Documentary Feature: Paradise Lost 3
Best Live Action Short: Tuba Atlantic
Best Animated Short: La Luna
Best Documentary Short: Incident in New Baghdad

september oscar predictions UPDATE

It's about time these predictions got a little bit of an update.  It's been since mid- to late-July since I took a gander at them.  Now, these don't reflect the most recent hubbub - the gaga for Shame that's going on on the festival circuit - but I'm still sticking to them!  As you can see, we have a new winner, as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has sunken slightly in my rankings. Take a click at that list to the left of the featured categories!

10 nominations

The Artist

7 nominations

War Horse

6 nominations

The Help

5 nominations

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, J. Edgar,

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Tree of Life

4 nominations

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,

Hugo, Super 8, The Ides of March

3 nominations

Albert Nobbs, Carnage, The Iron Lady,

Transformers 3

2 nominations

Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Rango,

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Need to Talk About Kevin

1 nomination

A Dangerous Method, Adventures of Tintin,

Arthur Christmas, Beginners, Bridesmaids,

Captain America, Cars 2, Coriolanus,

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Descendants,

The Muppets, The Rum Diary, Winnie the Pooh

oscar predictions UPDATED!

Well, I almost kept to my promise of completing my prediction updates in a week and a half... it took about two instead.  (Better than more than a month, though, no?)  Anyway, below is the nomination count I currently am predicting.  Take a gander at all the categories in the menu to the left, and get those comments out in this post!

9 nominations

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

7 nominations

The Artist, War Horse

6 nominations

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

5 nominations

Hugo, J. Edgar, The Tree of Life

4 nominations

Carnage, The Descendants

3 nominations

Super 8, The Help, The Iron Lady,

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2 nominations

A Dangerous Method, Captain America,

Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Rango,

The Ides of March

1 nomination

The Adventures of Tintin, Albert Nobbs, Beginners,

Coriolanus, Kung Fu Panda 2, Martha Marcy May Marlene,

My Week with Marilyn, Rio, The Muppets, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,

We Need to Talk About Kevin, X-Men: First Class

oscar predictions: LEAD ACTOR, SUPPORTING ACTOR & ACTRESS updated

The updates continue.  (In fact, you can expect the bulk of the rest of them will be completed on Tuesday.)  For now, though, the big six have been completed.  Previously, Picture, Director, and Lead Actress were revised.

This time around, we've got Supporting Actor, which didn't see a whole lot of shifting (Where are the guys of 2011 and why haven't they made themselves more obvious?), other than my decrease in over-confidence about Moneyball, which caused me to swap my Philip Seymour Hoffman placements.  Looks like Jonah Hill might be a stronger candidate than Hoffman in the end for the former, but the Oscars love him, so I'm promoting the latter.

As far as Lead Actor, things just keep getting weirder with the Sean Penn This Must Be the Place performance - the teaser is interesting but wholly bizarre, and buzz is getting a little spotty now.  Beyond that, Dujardin and Oldman got promotions due to high praise and very intriguing promo material.  Oh, and a Ryan Gosling canceling out situation seems so unfortunately likely at this point.

In the Supporting Actress category, it seems as though The Artist's taking over my charts and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting a 2011 release has shoved out Chastain and McTeer in favor of Bejo and Bullock.

oscar predictions: PICTURE, DIRECTOR, LEAD ACTRESS updated

All right folks.  For those of you wondering, some bizarro script in my coding was slowing down the ol' blog, but all is well again!  So please come back!  Now on to new news... So may trailers and posters and release dates have been announced since last I updated the prediction pages, so I figured it was high time to get on that.  And since Tuesday is my merciful day off from work, what better time?  And this time I promise it won't take a month and a half.  (So I expect you to hold me to that.)

Starting off with Best Picture, consider some feathers ruffled.  My uber-confidence in The Tree of Life has certainly waned now that I've seen it - I doubt its ability to stick with voters with its surrealistic nature.  In other news, the Weinsteins are stepping up their game by snatching up big-name awards bait such as The Artist, The Iron Lady, and W.E.  Artist may just be the strange little anomaly that ends up with 10 nominations.  Which begs the question that I've plagued with - which seemingly ordinary movie is going to encounter sudden end-of-year success both financially and critically and land 10 nods a la True Grit?

Next up, be sure to check out Best Director and see how you feel about my choices.  Not much has changed there other than Malick getting bumped for Fincher's rising star.  Anyone else think Dragon Tattoo: America is going to make a lot more ripples than its Scandinavian counterpart?

And of the ladies actressing for the best of 2011 status, everyone's constantly talking about the showdown between Glenn Close and Meryl Streep... but what of Keira Knightley?  That new trailer is telling me that she could be the Portman spoiler to Close/Streep's Bening.  I don't think voters are really over their obsession with youth yet.  Plus that Knightley scene looks meaty to the max.

oscar predictions update: COMPLETE!

Well, it only took about a month and a half, but I'm finally done updating my Oscar predictions.  Check the menu in the top left to take a gander at the new finished categories - Best Film Editing, the sound and music categories, and Best Animated Feature.  And here's my most recent nomination tally below:

10 nominations

The Tree of Life

8 nominations

War Horse

6 nominations

J. Edgar, Carnage

5 nominations

Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

4 nominations

The Descendants, The Help, The Iron Lady,

Hugo Cabret

3 nominations

The Ides of March, Albert Nobbs, Super 8,

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,

Transformers: Dark of the Moon,

Adventures of Tintin

2 nominations

We Need to Talk About Kevin,

My Week with Marilyn, Captain America,

The Muppets, Cars 2

1 nomination

This Must Be the Place, Coriolanus,

A Dangerous Method, Rampart, Young Adult,

The Rum Diary, Pirates of the Caribbean 4,

Rango, Rio, Winnie the Pooh

oscar predictions update: BEST ART DIRECTION

In honor of the Tonys playing out tonight, and an inevitable trophy for set design and such for the play War Horse, I thought it the best time to do a bit of updating on my Art Direction predictions for Oscar (just scroll down below the Cinematography and Costume Design sections).  And yes, War Horse has risen in the ranks.  I doubt its potential in acting and writing, but art direction seems like a sure thing.  Check out the picks, and let me know what you think, readers!

oscar predictions update: BEST COSTUME DESIGN

The visual category updates continue.  Check out the corresponding page, below Best Cinematography, and let me know your thoughts on the costume race.  Is it a Powell/Beavan/Atwood race again this year, or will The Help, Jane Eyre and The Artist manage spots?

predictions update: BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

I'm slowly but surely working my way through these categories.  And honestly, the landscape of Oscar buzz has shifted so much since I started the predictions back in May, I'll no doubt be updating those big six categories again in the next couple of weeks.  But until then, feast your eyes on the revised charts for Best Cinematography, with Art Direction and Costume Design coming soon!

oscar predictions update: BEST DIRECTOR

What to do, what to do... Terrence Malick has been faced with some interesting reactions to his Tree of Life, and little else has drastically changed in the Best Director field.  Sure, The Descendants trailer came out and answered some questions about what that's about, and Lynne Ramsay's work in We Need to Talk About Kevin is getting far more attention than I suspected, but not a lot shifted from my early April choices.  So click on the link in the upper left column to check it all out!

reading material: SCREENPLAY predictions updated

All right folks - still easing my way in.  But I had a day off, so I thought it was time to continue those ol' predictions to the left there.  Just added in the screenplay categories as well.  A few upheavals thanks to Cannes, so feel free to check 'em out!

I have returned... tentatively.

All right, so I couldn't stay away from you crazy kids forever, now could I?  Though my newly employed self is putting in some serious overtime in my day job, I'm excited to get back to blogging now that life is starting to revert back to a sort of normalcy.  I'm starting with the important (and most fun) stuff.  To the left you'll see I've started updating my Oscar predictions for May.  Starting with Best Picture tonight, and hopefully the acting categories tomorrow.  Please do check it out, and come back to this here blog post for discussion!

april oscar predictions complete: TALLIES and COMMENTARY

Well after much toiling, my first round of Oscar predictions are now on record.  There's a handy-dandy widget in upper right column of the blog to navigate through my initial thoughts on this year's Oscar race.  While I'm quick to say that everyone's confidence in The Tree of Life being this year's big Academy Awards movie is premature and a little misguided (I fear it'll fall flat come May just from sheer over-hyping), I ended up declaring it the eventual nomination count leader nonetheless. Such is life.  From the previews, it's hard to deny that it'll have technical and visual appeal, which is something we've come to expect from Terrence Malick's films anyway.  A lot of my reliability, though, is resting on a couple of movies that are currently slated for a 2012 release, but have already begun filming - so they could just as easily get snuck in in December:  J. Edgar and Carnage.  We'll just have to wait and see how those two fare for 2011.  So go ahead and check out the individual category pictorial write-ups amidst the linkage in the upper left corner of the blog, and look no further than directly below for the final tallies for my current predictions for Oscar 2011.

April Oscar Tallies

8 nominations

The Tree of Life

7 nominations

Hugo Cabret

6 nominations

J. Edgar, Moneyball, War Horse

4 nominations

Rango, The Iron Lady

3 nominations

Adventures of Tintin, Albert Nobbs, My Week with Marilyn, The Descendants, The Ides of March, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Water for Elephants, Young Adult

2 nominations

A Dangerous Method, Carnage, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Muppets, The Skin I Live In, X-Men: First Class

1 nomination

Beginners, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cars 2, Coriolanus, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, Jane Eyre, Rio, Source Code, The Eye of the Storm, The Help, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Winnie the Pooh

april oscar predictions: SUPPORTING and SCREENPLAY categories

The April round of predictions keep on coming (and I'm finally getting the hang of this Blogger "pages" thing - I highly recommend it!), this time with the two supporting categories, as well as the two screenplay categories.  My predicting abilities are going to get foggier and foggier as we head into the tech categories, but I'll do my best.  

**UPDATE** Look to the gadget to the left for the latest predictions.  All the acting and screenplay categories are finished, as well as Best Picture.  Working on some tech categories currently, and Best Director has been posted thus far.

april oscar predictions: BEST PICTURE

The year is more than a quarter complete now, so it's only fitting that Oscar discussion commence.  I don't know about you, but my fatigue from 2010's award season is over, and I'm ready to ponder anew the latest and greatest of 2011!  To start things off, I'm experimenting with the "pages" function of blogger to bring you the first of this round of predictions, starting with the elusive Best Picture.  Please do check them out, and let me know what your thoughts are!

**UPDATE** Best Lead Actress and Actor have officially been added.  Go check it out at the above link!