THE GAY SUPERBOWL
So Oscar night is here again. By default, the management of the Virgin Megastore Orlando Oscar competition has fallen to me - and I spent the whole of last evening collating and tabulating peoples' votes.
According to the collated predictions from the 78th Annual Academy Awards Competition, the Megastore staff has some clear favorites as well as a few nominees where the odds are a bit more even. When it comes to original screenplay, for example, seven out of ten of us think it'll go Crash. We're a little less certain about the adapted screenplay, though we still have a favorite: 52% of us feel it will go to Brokeback Mountain, with Capote, Constant Gardener, and History of Violence roughly tied at about 15% each.
We appear to be most confident about the National Geographic rip-off, March of the Penguins as Best Documentary which earned 80% of our predictions. With results in the 65-75% range, other clear favorites include King Kong for sound editing, God Sleeps in Rwanda as Best Documentary Short, and Star Wars: Episode XXVII Return of the Attack of the Snood for make-up.
Six out of ten of us are backing Reese Witherspoon as Best Actress, so Judi Dench (with no votes) could save herself the trip - were it not for the free booze. Mrs. Henderson Presents... didn't even get a vote for Best Costumes. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are in a dead heat for Best Actor, with 44% each. We seem to be pretty sure that Rachel Weisz (48%) will get best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams trail with 20% each) and that George Clooney (40%) will take home his only award as Supporting Actor (24% are backing Paul Giamatti and 20% are behind Jake Gyllenhaal - or wish they were).
The estimates are a bit closer for Foreign Language film: a third of us predict a win for South Africa's Tsotsi with 25% for both Italy's Don't Tell and the Palestinian Paradise Now.
Over half of us think [i]Wallace and Gromit[/i] will be the Best Animated Feature, that Crash will pick up Best Editing, and that Memoirs of a Geisha will win for costumes. Art Direction seems to be a closer race (at least as far as the Virgin staff is concerned): King Kong (at 32%) has a marginal lead over Harry Potter and the Secret of the Boxed Set (28%), with Memoirs of a Geisha (24%) snapping at their backsides. For Best Score, 37% of us predict a win for Geisha, giving it a slight lead over the rest of the field. There's a similarly slight edge for Brokeback Mountain for Cinematography, with a third of our votes.
Forty-eight percent of us think the directing honors will go to Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), with 36% expecting a win for Paul Haggis (Crash). We're fairly confident, though, that Lee's film will take Best Picture, with 56% predicting a win for the bisexual shepherd flick. The Haggis film drops to 20%, with 16% backing Munich and 8% imagining that Capote has a chance. Good Night, and Good Luck has been left out in the cold with Judi Dench.
When it comes to the short films, we don't seem to have much of a clue - and the rest of the technical awards are pretty close calls (or very random guesswork). If our collective prognostication is right, [i]Brokeback Mountain[/i] will win four awards, Crash, Walk the Line, and King Kong and will each go home with three statuettes, and there'll be another two little men for the Geisha. All in all, probably a more even distribution than we'll get from the Academy.
It'll be interesting to see how we fare tonight (not to mention finding out who will be taking home the goodies). More to follow after the ceremony...
Less interesting, perhaps, are my own predictions. For the record, they are as follows:
PICTURE
Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash
I'm likely to be wrong on this one, but I'm hoping that the Academy might just go with quality over hype. Plus half of Hollywodd was in the film and the half of Tinseltown that doesn;t want to sleep with Reese Witherspoon (who will, therefore, win Best Actress) wants to sleep with Ryan Phillippe - and Crash is set in LA, which a lot of voters call home. None of this has much to do with the fact that Crash is a vastly superior film to Brokeback Mountain, but you never know - the Academy could, for once, do the right thing.
ACTOR
Will win: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Should win: Terrence Howard
I can do a better Truman Capote impersonation. And I can certainly grunt as well as Heath Ledger, the other contender that some people think has a hope of taking home the award. For sheer acting chops, the award should be Howard's.
ACTRESS
Will win: Reese Witherspoon
Should win: Felicity Huffman
I have nothing against America's Most Recent Sweetheart, but - sorry - June Carter was just not that demanding a role. Nevertheless, everyone seems to love the pointy-chinned little bitch that nabbed Ryan Phillippe.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: George Clooney
Should win: Matt Dillon
Syriana should have been nominated for Picture or Screenplay, not Supporting Actor. Clooney will get this as a consolation prize. The same argument has been used for a Paul Giamatti win, but Hollywood likes Clooney more - and he's prettier.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will win: Rachel Weisz
Should win: Frances McDormand
Weisz is good, but McDormand is better. Neither has that much screen time in their respective films, but Frances McDormand should be given an award every year because she's brilliant and I love her. So there.
DIRECTOR
Will win: Ang Lee
Should win: Paul Haggis
Lee should have won in 1995 for Sense and Sensibility (rather than the idiotic Braveheart that year) or, maybe, 1997's The Ice Storm (the year of the execrable Titanic), but not for this thing. To be blunt: Haggis simply did better work in Crash than Lee did in Brokeback Mountain. For that matter, George Clooney did better work in Good Night, and Good Luck than Lee did this year. Yeah, well.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will win: Tsotsi
Should win: Paradise Now
The Academy will go with Tsotsi because they should have given this award to the similar (and deserving) City of God from Brazil four years ago and because they're too cowardly to give it to the superior Palestinian entry.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: A History of Violence
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana took an unbearably moving story and turned it into an cold, passionless, over-extended yet underdeveloped character study that missed the point entirely. Yeah, give that pair an Oscar. I'd be happy if anything else won (well, except for Munich - but that's because Tony Kushner is a fucking asshole who should be lynched rather than honored). I'd go with A History of Violence or, failing that, The Constant Gardener. The screenplays for both put Brokeback to shame.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will win: Crash
Should win: Match Point
As it happens, I'm glad Crash is the favorite - this may be about the only award the Best Picture of the Year takes home and it deserves all the attention it can get. But, in terms of writing, Match Point was the best script to have been filmed last year. Crash was a close second - with The Squid and the Whale a close third. Then we'd get to some of the adapted screenplays. Brokeback Mountain would still come last.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Will win: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Should win: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Wallace and Gromit will win because Chicken Run was robbed in 2000 (prompting the addition of Best Animated Feature in 2001), but all three W&G shorts are better than their first feature. Besides, in the stop-action stakes, Corpse Bride was generally better designed and executed - and the story was vastly better-written.
ART DIRECTION
Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: King Kong
Something tells me that the Academy will go with period and location over damned excellent art direction. The design of King Kong - especially the New York sequences was nothing short of brilliant. Geisha, while worthy, was pretty much been there, done that. I actually went with Kong as my vote in the Virgin competition, but suspect that Depression-era New York won't do it for the bulk of the west coast voters.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain
This was the one area where Brokeback genuinely excelled. No one can fault the lighting or camerawork here. I'd put Batman Begins as a close second, but I suspect it doesn't stand a chance.
SOUND MIXING
Will win: Walk the Line
Should win: King Kong
Not only was the sound in King Kong stunning, it was loud - which tends to attract the non-technical voters in this category. However, the general voter also tends to favor musicals - and they will most likely use this as an oblique way of honoring Johnny Cash and giving the film a second award. I also went with Kong for this one in the Virgin competition, as well - but the consensus vote there convinced me that Walk the Line might prove as popular with the Academy voters.
SOUND EDITING
Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong
Again, it was good and loud - and Walk the Line wasn't nominated.
ORIGINAL SCORE
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain
Santaolalla's score was the best thing about this movie and I suspect that the two John Williams nominations will cancel each other out. Otherwise, the Academy would no doubt have gone with a typically overproduced score with a big orchestra and swelling major chords. They may still go with Geisha or (as a boobie prize for Spielberg) Munich, but I think Brokeback will slip through.
ORIGINAL SONG
Will win: In the Deep
Should win: In the Deep
Thematically, In the Deep tied into the film's subject matter extremely well - plus it's a good song. It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp is a contender, but I suspect it's a bit too edgy for a votership whose average age is roughly 107. Travelin' Through is too innocuous, despite Hollywood's love for Dolly parton. It'll be ebough to see her on the stage of the Kodak Theater.
COSTUME DESIGN
Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Apart from Ziyi Zhang's performance, this is the one thing that Memoirs had going for it. Besides, apart from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which was just too garish for the Academy), the other nominees are just too lackluster.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will win: March of the Fucking Penguins
Should win: Murderball
For me, this was a bit of a toss-up between Murderball and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Unfortunately, the best documentary iof the year (The Aristocrats) was not even nominated. Instead, I suspect the Academy will go with one of the worst films of the year - and one of the worst documentaries ever made.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Will win: God Sleeps in Rwanda
Should win: The Death of Kevin Carter
The Academy will go with God Sleeps in Rwanda because it has Rwanda in the title and they may feel bad about snubbing last year's best film, Hotel Rwanda. In fact, The Death of Kevin Carter
is not only closer to Hotel Rwanda thematically, it is also the superior fimlm.
FILM EDITING
Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash
I don't think anything else stands a chance.
MAKEUP
Will win: The Chronicles of Narnia
Should win: The Chronicles of Narnia
Star Wars: Episode XXVII The Return of the Attack of the Snood probably deserves it, and would no doubt have one if it hadn't been the twenty-seventh installment. Instead, I expect it will go to relative newcomer Narnia.
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Will win: The Moon and the Son
Should win: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Jasper Morello is more fully realized, more interesting visually, and more technically accomplished, but The Moon and the Son is cuter and has a "message". I first thought Jasper Morello might be good enough to sway the Academy (and voted that way on the Virgin ballot), but they'll probably end up going with cute message.
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Will win: Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Should win: Six Shooter
This is total guesswork. I'm only backing Six Shooter because it's Irish. In fact, I predicted it would win in the Virgin competition - because it's Irish. But Ausreisser is both foreign language and issue-oriented and both are often popular in this category.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong
They were simply the best.
And now it's off to the red carpet...
According to the collated predictions from the 78th Annual Academy Awards Competition, the Megastore staff has some clear favorites as well as a few nominees where the odds are a bit more even. When it comes to original screenplay, for example, seven out of ten of us think it'll go Crash. We're a little less certain about the adapted screenplay, though we still have a favorite: 52% of us feel it will go to Brokeback Mountain, with Capote, Constant Gardener, and History of Violence roughly tied at about 15% each.
We appear to be most confident about the National Geographic rip-off, March of the Penguins as Best Documentary which earned 80% of our predictions. With results in the 65-75% range, other clear favorites include King Kong for sound editing, God Sleeps in Rwanda as Best Documentary Short, and Star Wars: Episode XXVII Return of the Attack of the Snood for make-up.
Six out of ten of us are backing Reese Witherspoon as Best Actress, so Judi Dench (with no votes) could save herself the trip - were it not for the free booze. Mrs. Henderson Presents... didn't even get a vote for Best Costumes. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are in a dead heat for Best Actor, with 44% each. We seem to be pretty sure that Rachel Weisz (48%) will get best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams trail with 20% each) and that George Clooney (40%) will take home his only award as Supporting Actor (24% are backing Paul Giamatti and 20% are behind Jake Gyllenhaal - or wish they were).
The estimates are a bit closer for Foreign Language film: a third of us predict a win for South Africa's Tsotsi with 25% for both Italy's Don't Tell and the Palestinian Paradise Now.
Over half of us think [i]Wallace and Gromit[/i] will be the Best Animated Feature, that Crash will pick up Best Editing, and that Memoirs of a Geisha will win for costumes. Art Direction seems to be a closer race (at least as far as the Virgin staff is concerned): King Kong (at 32%) has a marginal lead over Harry Potter and the Secret of the Boxed Set (28%), with Memoirs of a Geisha (24%) snapping at their backsides. For Best Score, 37% of us predict a win for Geisha, giving it a slight lead over the rest of the field. There's a similarly slight edge for Brokeback Mountain for Cinematography, with a third of our votes.
Forty-eight percent of us think the directing honors will go to Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), with 36% expecting a win for Paul Haggis (Crash). We're fairly confident, though, that Lee's film will take Best Picture, with 56% predicting a win for the bisexual shepherd flick. The Haggis film drops to 20%, with 16% backing Munich and 8% imagining that Capote has a chance. Good Night, and Good Luck has been left out in the cold with Judi Dench.
When it comes to the short films, we don't seem to have much of a clue - and the rest of the technical awards are pretty close calls (or very random guesswork). If our collective prognostication is right, [i]Brokeback Mountain[/i] will win four awards, Crash, Walk the Line, and King Kong and will each go home with three statuettes, and there'll be another two little men for the Geisha. All in all, probably a more even distribution than we'll get from the Academy.
It'll be interesting to see how we fare tonight (not to mention finding out who will be taking home the goodies). More to follow after the ceremony...
Less interesting, perhaps, are my own predictions. For the record, they are as follows:
PICTURE
Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash
I'm likely to be wrong on this one, but I'm hoping that the Academy might just go with quality over hype. Plus half of Hollywodd was in the film and the half of Tinseltown that doesn;t want to sleep with Reese Witherspoon (who will, therefore, win Best Actress) wants to sleep with Ryan Phillippe - and Crash is set in LA, which a lot of voters call home. None of this has much to do with the fact that Crash is a vastly superior film to Brokeback Mountain, but you never know - the Academy could, for once, do the right thing.
ACTOR
Will win: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Should win: Terrence Howard
I can do a better Truman Capote impersonation. And I can certainly grunt as well as Heath Ledger, the other contender that some people think has a hope of taking home the award. For sheer acting chops, the award should be Howard's.
ACTRESS
Will win: Reese Witherspoon
Should win: Felicity Huffman
I have nothing against America's Most Recent Sweetheart, but - sorry - June Carter was just not that demanding a role. Nevertheless, everyone seems to love the pointy-chinned little bitch that nabbed Ryan Phillippe.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: George Clooney
Should win: Matt Dillon
Syriana should have been nominated for Picture or Screenplay, not Supporting Actor. Clooney will get this as a consolation prize. The same argument has been used for a Paul Giamatti win, but Hollywood likes Clooney more - and he's prettier.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will win: Rachel Weisz
Should win: Frances McDormand
Weisz is good, but McDormand is better. Neither has that much screen time in their respective films, but Frances McDormand should be given an award every year because she's brilliant and I love her. So there.
DIRECTOR
Will win: Ang Lee
Should win: Paul Haggis
Lee should have won in 1995 for Sense and Sensibility (rather than the idiotic Braveheart that year) or, maybe, 1997's The Ice Storm (the year of the execrable Titanic), but not for this thing. To be blunt: Haggis simply did better work in Crash than Lee did in Brokeback Mountain. For that matter, George Clooney did better work in Good Night, and Good Luck than Lee did this year. Yeah, well.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will win: Tsotsi
Should win: Paradise Now
The Academy will go with Tsotsi because they should have given this award to the similar (and deserving) City of God from Brazil four years ago and because they're too cowardly to give it to the superior Palestinian entry.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: A History of Violence
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana took an unbearably moving story and turned it into an cold, passionless, over-extended yet underdeveloped character study that missed the point entirely. Yeah, give that pair an Oscar. I'd be happy if anything else won (well, except for Munich - but that's because Tony Kushner is a fucking asshole who should be lynched rather than honored). I'd go with A History of Violence or, failing that, The Constant Gardener. The screenplays for both put Brokeback to shame.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will win: Crash
Should win: Match Point
As it happens, I'm glad Crash is the favorite - this may be about the only award the Best Picture of the Year takes home and it deserves all the attention it can get. But, in terms of writing, Match Point was the best script to have been filmed last year. Crash was a close second - with The Squid and the Whale a close third. Then we'd get to some of the adapted screenplays. Brokeback Mountain would still come last.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Will win: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Should win: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Wallace and Gromit will win because Chicken Run was robbed in 2000 (prompting the addition of Best Animated Feature in 2001), but all three W&G shorts are better than their first feature. Besides, in the stop-action stakes, Corpse Bride was generally better designed and executed - and the story was vastly better-written.
ART DIRECTION
Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: King Kong
Something tells me that the Academy will go with period and location over damned excellent art direction. The design of King Kong - especially the New York sequences was nothing short of brilliant. Geisha, while worthy, was pretty much been there, done that. I actually went with Kong as my vote in the Virgin competition, but suspect that Depression-era New York won't do it for the bulk of the west coast voters.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain
This was the one area where Brokeback genuinely excelled. No one can fault the lighting or camerawork here. I'd put Batman Begins as a close second, but I suspect it doesn't stand a chance.
SOUND MIXING
Will win: Walk the Line
Should win: King Kong
Not only was the sound in King Kong stunning, it was loud - which tends to attract the non-technical voters in this category. However, the general voter also tends to favor musicals - and they will most likely use this as an oblique way of honoring Johnny Cash and giving the film a second award. I also went with Kong for this one in the Virgin competition, as well - but the consensus vote there convinced me that Walk the Line might prove as popular with the Academy voters.
SOUND EDITING
Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong
Again, it was good and loud - and Walk the Line wasn't nominated.
ORIGINAL SCORE
Will win: Brokeback Mountain
Should win: Brokeback Mountain
Santaolalla's score was the best thing about this movie and I suspect that the two John Williams nominations will cancel each other out. Otherwise, the Academy would no doubt have gone with a typically overproduced score with a big orchestra and swelling major chords. They may still go with Geisha or (as a boobie prize for Spielberg) Munich, but I think Brokeback will slip through.
ORIGINAL SONG
Will win: In the Deep
Should win: In the Deep
Thematically, In the Deep tied into the film's subject matter extremely well - plus it's a good song. It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp is a contender, but I suspect it's a bit too edgy for a votership whose average age is roughly 107. Travelin' Through is too innocuous, despite Hollywood's love for Dolly parton. It'll be ebough to see her on the stage of the Kodak Theater.
COSTUME DESIGN
Will win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Should win: Memoirs of a Geisha
Apart from Ziyi Zhang's performance, this is the one thing that Memoirs had going for it. Besides, apart from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which was just too garish for the Academy), the other nominees are just too lackluster.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will win: March of the Fucking Penguins
Should win: Murderball
For me, this was a bit of a toss-up between Murderball and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Unfortunately, the best documentary iof the year (The Aristocrats) was not even nominated. Instead, I suspect the Academy will go with one of the worst films of the year - and one of the worst documentaries ever made.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Will win: God Sleeps in Rwanda
Should win: The Death of Kevin Carter
The Academy will go with God Sleeps in Rwanda because it has Rwanda in the title and they may feel bad about snubbing last year's best film, Hotel Rwanda. In fact, The Death of Kevin Carter
is not only closer to Hotel Rwanda thematically, it is also the superior fimlm.
FILM EDITING
Will win: Crash
Should win: Crash
I don't think anything else stands a chance.
MAKEUP
Will win: The Chronicles of Narnia
Should win: The Chronicles of Narnia
Star Wars: Episode XXVII The Return of the Attack of the Snood probably deserves it, and would no doubt have one if it hadn't been the twenty-seventh installment. Instead, I expect it will go to relative newcomer Narnia.
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Will win: The Moon and the Son
Should win: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Jasper Morello is more fully realized, more interesting visually, and more technically accomplished, but The Moon and the Son is cuter and has a "message". I first thought Jasper Morello might be good enough to sway the Academy (and voted that way on the Virgin ballot), but they'll probably end up going with cute message.
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Will win: Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Should win: Six Shooter
This is total guesswork. I'm only backing Six Shooter because it's Irish. In fact, I predicted it would win in the Virgin competition - because it's Irish. But Ausreisser is both foreign language and issue-oriented and both are often popular in this category.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: King Kong
Should win: King Kong
They were simply the best.
And now it's off to the red carpet...