Amy's Robot

Oscar Picks!

OK, strike's over, the Oscars are here, get cracking on writing those puns for mismatched pairs of presenters, WGA members!

A lot of the nominess for the big awards at this year's Oscars are surprising, and some categories are really all over the place. Next Sunday should be an interesting night.

Before we get to the picks, I want to point out this year's Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Robert Boyle, an art director I've never heard of. The montage of his movies before his speech is going to be awesome: he worked on In Cold Blood, North By Northwest, The Birds, Marnie, the original Cape Fear, and Abbott and Costello Go To Mars. Guess who forgot to give this guy an Oscar? Oopsie!

So here are our picks of who we think will win in each category. Please add your picks for any categories you want to predict in the comments.

You can also participate in IMDb's poll, where you vote for who you want to win, not necessarily who you think will.

Actor in a leading role
George Clooney in "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" [Amy][Cushie]
Johnny Depp in "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Tommy Lee Jones in "In the Valley of Elah"
Viggo Mortensen in "Eastern Promises"

Actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men" [Amy]
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Charlie Wilson's War"
Hal Holbrook in "Into the Wild"
Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton" [Cushie]
(This is my favorite category--these guys are all so good. Hal Holbrook is my favorite, but I don't think he'll win.)

Actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie in "Away from Her" [Amy]
Marion Cotillard in "La Vie en Rose"
Laura Linney in "The Savages"
Ellen Page in "Juno" [Cushie]
(A pretty weird group. Aside from Juno, these movies hardly have any other nominations. But Academy folks are nuts for Julie Christie, so I think she'll win it for sentimental reasons.)

Actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" [Cushie]
Ruby Dee in "American Gangster"
Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement"
Amy Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone" [Amy]
Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton"
(Holy God, Amy Ryan was so good. She really deserves it. Cate Blanchett could get it, but she already has one of these for The Aviator.)

Animated feature film
"Persepolis"
"Ratatouille" [Amy][Cushie]
"Surf's Up"

Art direction
"American Gangster"
"Atonement" [Amy]
"The Golden Compass"
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" [Cushie]
"There Will Be Blood"
(If Atonement wins anything, it will probably be for this sort of stuff. It was awfully pretty.)

Cinematography
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
"Atonement"
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood" [Amy][Cushie]

Costume design
"Across the Universe" [Cushie]
"Atonement"
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
"La Vie en Rose"
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" [Amy]

Directing
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men" [Amy][Cushie]
"There Will Be Blood"
(The Academy is so relieved that the Coens are making good movies again that they won't be able to resist.)

Documentary feature
"No End in Sight" [Amy]
"Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience"
"Sicko" [Cushie]
"Taxi to the Dark Side"
"War/Dance"

Documentary short subject
"Freeheld"
"La Corona (The Crown)"
"Salim Baba"
"Sari's Mother" [Amy][Cushie]

Film editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum"
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"Into the Wild"
"No Country for Old Men" [Amy]
"There Will Be Blood" [Cushie]

Foreign language film
"Beaufort" Israel
"The Counterfeiters" Austria
"Katyn" Poland [Amy][Cushie]
"Mongol" Kazakhstan
"12" Russia

Makeup
"La Vie en Rose" [Amy][Cushie]
"Norbit"
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
(Heh. Norbit.)

Music (score)
"Atonement"
"The Kite Runner" [Cushie]
"Michael Clayton"
"Ratatouille" [Amy]
"3:10 to Yuma"

Music (song)
"Falling Slowly" from "Once" [Cushie, wishful thinking...]
"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted"
"Raise It Up" from "August Rush"
"So Close" from "Enchanted"
"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted" (Amy)
(Enchanted's got a lock. Alan Menken wrote all of them, and he's Mr. Disney Oscar.)

Best picture
"Atonement"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men" [Amy]
"There Will Be Blood" [Cushie]
(Tough one, best guess. There Will Be Blood is too weird, and people don't like the other ones enough.)

Animated short film
"I Met the Walrus"
"Madame Tutli-Putli"
"Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)" [Amy][Cushie]
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)"
"Peter & the Wolf"

Live action short film
"At Night" [Amy][Cushie, I have no idea]
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)"
"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)"
"Tanghi Argentini"
"The Tonto Woman"

Sound editing
"The Bourne Ultimatum"
"No Country for Old Men" [Amy]
"Ratatouille"
"There Will Be Blood" [Cushie]
"Transformers"

Sound mixing
"The Bourne Ultimatum" [Cushie]
"No Country for Old Men"
"Ratatouille"
"3:10 to Yuma" [Amy]
"Transformers"

Visual effects
"The Golden Compass"
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End"
"Transformers" [Amy][Cushie]

Adapted screenplay
"Atonement"
"Away from Her"
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
"No Country for Old Men" [Amy]
"There Will Be Blood" [Cushie]
(This is a really hard one, but the Coens managed to make the Cormac McCarthy book funny and sort of snappy, so it will probably win.)

Original screenplay
"Juno" [Cushie]
"Lars and the Real Girl"
"Michael Clayton" [Amy]
"Ratatouille"
"The Savages"
(I just realized that I am predicting a Juno shut-out. I think it will either win zero awards or maybe will bizarrely only win Best Picture, if votes get split between No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood.)

categories: Movies
posted by amy at 4:49 PM | #