Thursday, January 22, 2009

Last Minute Predictions

Okay, so it's 6 hours before the Oscar nominations are being announced, and I'm so stoked and high on a rush of adrenaline that I decided to post my predictions for the nominees. I seriously live for this time of year. I love it! I made this list really fast purposefully so that my gut feelings would guide me, and my choices would be pure and free from second-guessing. I want to be clear that these are the films/people that I believe WILL be nominated, not necessarily the ones that I personally think SHOULD be nominated. That being said, here are my predictions for the Oscar nominees in the six major categories:

Best Picture:

The Dark Knight
Milk
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire
The Wrestler

Best Director:

Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Best Actor:

Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actor:

Josh Brolin, Milk
James Franco, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Ta-da! Yikes, I'm really putting myself out there. This could be disastrous, but I really hope I made some good and maybe unorthodox or unexpected calls.

Super Special Bonus Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire will receive the most nominations with 12.

Fingers crossed! I'm so excited! And a little nervous! But mostly excited!

Man, I love what I do.

6 comments:

Bill Treadway said...

I think your nominations list shows much better range than the list the Academy came up with.

At least they completely shut out Gran Torino! And of course they did nominate Heath. Hopefully he wins.

I was hoping for CSNY Deja Vu to be nominated for Best Documentary. And The Dark Knight for Best Picture.

Lisa Draski said...

I guess I gave them too much credit...and I think I threw in a bit of wishful thinking.

Heath will win. That's a lock.

The Dark Knight absolutely should have been nominated. Haven't seen Ben Button or The Reader yet, but they're way too safe.

The biggest outrage for me is that Sally Hawkins got snubbed! I thought she was a lock to WIN! Unreal.

Bill Treadway said...

Benjamin Button is good but not great. The Reader was very good but as you see, it didn't make my Top 10 list. And add Frost/Nixon to the list of safe choices, although it's an excellent movie.

If I would have had my way, Best Picture would have been Dark Knight, WALL-E, The Wrestler, The Visitor and Happy Go Lucky (if we keep docs out of Best Picture that is..)

And Sally Hawkins getting snubbed was the biggest sin the Academy committed. I guess she didn't have the star power of Angelina. To be fair, Changeling was the better Eastwood film of 2008 and the performance was superb. But better than Sally Hawkins? Absolutely not.

Lisa Draski said...

I thought Changeling was excellent and Angelina was astounding. No, not better than Sally Hawkins by a long stretch, but I don't blame Angelina for her absence. I certainly won't say Angelina is undeserving. Haven't seen any of the other performances, maybe she is the weakest, but I'm happy for the Jolie-Pitts today. :)

Oh, as far as WALL-E, I agree that it should have been nominated for Best Picture, but if it had been, I don't think it should have been eligible for the animated award. One or the other.
Is The Reader really a LEAD performance for Winslet?

Bill Treadway said...

I thought Kate Winslet's performance in The Reader was supporting. I'm baffled as to why they thought it was a lead. The Academy is notoriously inconsistent with what's a lead and what's a supporting performance. Look at Forest Whitaker a few years back- winning a Best Actor award for a role in which he's barely on-screen for 40 minutes of a 130 minute film. And let's go back about 35 years when Tatum O'Neal wins a Supporting award for a LEAD performance (onscreen 100 out of 103 minutes)

I am baffled as to how Changeling received such a poor reception..yet the raves for Gran Torino keep piling up. My family are the latest to be hoodwinked. I looked at them as if they were off their collective rocker.

If WALL-E loses to Kung Fu Panda, I'll barf.

Disappointed that The Wrestler didn't do better. I think it should have been nominated over Milk for Original Screenplay. But I'm not surprised as wrestling really has a negative stigma again(thanks to the Benoit murder/suicide three years ago..)

Alexa said...

Yes, these are much closer to the nominations that SHOULD have been. I usually love the Oscars, but this year I'm not so sure. I'll really only be rooting for Heath Ledger and Mickey Rourke.