2011 Oscar Predictions

Alright kids, it's Oscar Eve and normally, I do the predictions the day of, but I don't expect my mind to change much between now and tomorrow night, so let's just get it out of the way. Interesting year as some of the major categories are fore drawn conclusions while the others have potential upset written all over them. In the minor categories, I've found that a lot of categories have two legitimate candidates to win and it could go either way, so I have this feeling that I'm either going to annihilate everyone's faces tomorrow or be dreadfully wrong and I'll end up drowning my sorrows in a bottle of Bacardi Limon. Who am I kidding, I'll probably do the latter regardless. Ok so for the top 8 major categories (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay), I'll offer a prediction of who I think will win and who I think should win (out of who was nominated, not overall). Let's get on with it:

Best Picture
Who Will Win: The King's Speech
Who Should Win: The Social Network

- This is all about timing. TSN is the most acclaimed film of the year and has cleaned up with the critics and plenty of pre-cursors, but by the time its momentum was slowing, TKS' was just picking up. It annoys me that TKS is going to win as its typical, generic, feel-good formula gunk you've seen a thousand times before (and done better too), but this is no time to get into that. I'm sure I might mention it a time or two tomorrow night.

Best Director
Who Will Win: David Fincher - The Social Network
Who Should Win: David Fincher - The Social Network

- I'm not 100% confident on this, but I have a feeling that David Fincher is playing the Ang Lee circa 2006 role here where Lee won director for Brokeback Mountain beating out hack, Paul Haggis, whose piece of garbage, Crash, took home Best Picture that year. It wouldn't shock me to see Tom Hooper take it while riding the King's Speech wave. If Fincher does win, it'll be well-deserved, he's long been one of this country's best filmmakers and arguably our most relevant as he seems to be the king of making zeitgeist movies.

Best Actor
Who Will Win: Colin Firth - The King's Speech
Who Should Win: Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

- Book it and if I'm wrong, I'll let you pay me $100. It doesn't bother me b/c Firth is an excellent actor who continually turns in great work. He's very good here, but I think Eisenberg's complex, hypnotic work as Mark Zuckerberg in TSN was off the charts. If I talk shit about Firth tomorrow night, it'll be a reflection of my general disdain for TKS, so I apologize ahead of time, Colin.

Best Actress
Who Will Win: Natalie Portman - Black Swan
Who Should Win: Natalie Portman - Black Swan

- Not as big a lock as Firth, but Portman has been the frontrunner all along and I see no reason for that to stop tomorrow night. She's deserving as she really bares it all in Black Swan and is by far the best thing about a film that is basically Aronofsky doing more Aronofskying. Now, it is worth noting that this is Annette Bening's 4th nomination and the long respected actress has never won. Do with that information what you will.

Best Supporting Actor
Who Will Win: Christian Bale - The Fighter
Who Should Win: Christian Bale - The Fighter

- I love this category this year. It's full of great actors being rightfully recognized for their tremendous work this year. I mean, how cool is it that you have John Hawkes, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeremy Renner all being nominated for the same category? Good job, Academy. Of course, Bale is the king as he gives an indelibly fantastic performance in The Fighter. Like Portman, he has been the frontrunner all along, so I'm predicting a win tomorrow night, but I have this gross feeling that Geoffrey Rush will come riding in at the last minute on a wave of King's Speechness to steal it from Bale's clutches. Oscar generally goes by the book, but they will toss in a curveball or two in the major categories like they do every year, so buyer beware.

Best Supporting Actress
Who Will Win: Melissa Leo - The Fighter
Who Should Win: Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

- I'm going with Leo here as the respected veteran should overcome any issues with vote-splitting as Amy Adams is nominated in the same category for the same movie. I think the Academy will rally behind Leo similar to the way they did for Soderbergh in 2001 when he was nominated for Best Director for two different films. I'm slightly worried that Hailee Steinfeld could pull an upset for her work in True Grit b/c if there's one category in which Oscar likes to reward the young ingenue type, it's Best Supporting Actress. All worthy nominees here, but Weaver's chilling, haunting work in Animal Kingdom added a whole other layer to that film, she's the best of the bunch here, but unfortunately doesn't have a prayer.

Best Original Screenplay
Who Will Win: The King's Speech
Who Should Win: Inception

- It worked out nicely for Oscar as the two Best Pic frontrunners (The King's Speech and The Social Network) are nominated for screenplay awards in two different categories, so not only do they not have to face off, they each get to own their respective categories. It's ridiculous that one of the year's most original, ambitious, fascinating films (Inception) got basically pity nominations up and down the Oscars, but whatever. In 20 years, when The King's Speech will be a footnote, Inception will still be talked about for being the innovative, interesting piece of cinema that it is.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Who Will Win: The Social Network
Who Should Win: The Social Network

- Aaron Sorkin is largely credited with the success of TSN and rightfully so. This is one of the safer plays of the night.

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3
Best Original Score: The Social Network
Best Original Song: Toy Story 3
Best Editing: The Social Network
Best Cinematography: True Grit
Best Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland - Quick note about this: like I said last year, Costume Design is shooting up my power rankings as one of my favorite categories b/c it's difficult to predict and generally rewards the merits of the work and is generally not guilty of coattailing (which would especially be true if AiW wins, I mean who the hell likes that movie?). Also, this is a pretty epic showdown between Jenny Beavan (nominated here for The King's Speech) who has now been nominated 9 times (won just once) and Colleen Atwood (nominated here for Alice in Wonderland) who has also now been nominated 9 times (won twice), but is like the Albert Pujols of Costume Design as she has been nominated nearly every year of the last decade. Should be the showdown of the century!
Best Makeup: The Wolfman - If you ever bet against Rick Baker, you're an idiot (12 nominations, 6 wins).
Best Sound Mixing: Inception
Best Sound Editing: Inception
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Foreign Film: In a Better World
Best Documentary Feature: Exit Through the Gift Shop

- Ok so I'm predicting The Social Network to score the highest with 4 wins and The King's Speech to nab 3 wins. I'm also counting on Inception to perform like The Matrix in 2000 and get a slew of tech categories, otherwise I'm screwed. See you kids on the morrow.