Oscar Predictions

Picture: Babel (alt. The Departed)
Directing: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
Actor: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
Actress: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Actor in a Supporting Role: Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls)
Actress in a Supporting Role: Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)
Writing (Original Screenplay): Little Miss Sunshine
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Departed
Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others
Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth
Animated Feature Film: Cars
Documentary Short: Recycled Life
Short Film (Animated): The Little Matchgirl
Short Film (Live Action): West Bank Story
Film Editing: Babel
Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth
Cinematography: Children of Men
Costume Design: Dreamgirls
Makeup: Pan's Labyrinth
Score: The Queen
Song: "I Need To Wake Up" (An Inconvenient Truth)
Sound Editing: Letters From Iwo Jima
Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls
Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Final Oscar Predictions

The nominees come out tomorrow evening, so here's my final stab. Sorry about the lack of commentary but I'm tired.

Best Picture
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Best Director
Bill Condon, Dreamgirls
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Honsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Jack Nicholson, The Departed

Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barazza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Departed
The Devil Wears Prada
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
Thank You For Smoking

Best Original Screenplay
Babel
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
United 93
Volver

Best Animated Feature
Cars
Happy Feet
Over the Hedge

Best Cinematography
Apocalypto, Dean Semler
Babel, Rodrigo Prieto
Children of Men, Emmanuel Lubezki
The Good Shepherd, Robert Richardson
The Illusionist, Dick Pope

Best Costume Design
The Black Dahlia, Jenny Beavan
The Curse of the Golden Flower, Chung Mang Yee
Dreamgirls, Sharon Davies
Marie-Antoinette, Milena Canonero
The Painted Veil, Ruth Myres

Best Art Direction
The Curse of the Golden Flower
Children of Men
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pan's Labyrinth

Best Film Editing
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
The Queen
United 93

Best Makeup
Apocalypto
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Best Original Score
Apocalypto, James Newton Howard
Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla
The DaVinci Code, Hans Zimmer
The Illusionist, Philip Glass
The Painted Veil, Alexandre Desplat

Best Original Song
Bobby for 'Never Gonna Break My Faith'
Borat for 'O Kazakhstan'
Dreamgirls for 'Listen'
Happy Feet for 'Song of the Heart'
An Inconvenient Truth for 'I Need to Wake Up'

Best Sound Design
Blood Diamond
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
alternate: Babel

Best Sound Editing
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Cars
Flags of Our Fathers
Superman Returns
Poseidon

Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Superman Returns
X3: The Last Stand

Globes Rundown

Well, it seems as if it were a night of NO surprises. I scored 8/13 in my predictions which is not bad and 4 of my alternate picks made it in (the only category I completely missed was Best Picture-Drama). Dreamgirls picked up some steam, coming in with the most wins, 3, for Best Picture-Comedy/Musical, Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy and Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson). The Queen won two for Helen Mirren and Peter Morgan's screenplay. Everything else won one. Including Best Picture-Drama winner Babel, a win that came off looking more like a consolation prize for receiving the most nominations, rather than anything else. While the TV winners came out with some surprises (Yaay Ugly Betty and America Ferrera! Boo Grey's Anatomy!) including a wonderful makeup win for Emily Blunt (which I will of course pretend was really for The Devil Wears Prada), there weren't any shockers for the films. However, the lack of anything even near a sweep means that this year's Best Picture race is still wide open with The Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine, Babel and even The Queen all looking like contenders for the big prize. And that never happens.

Best Win of the Night: It was a foregone conclusion but nothing makes me quite as happy as hearing Marty Scorsese's name read out at these things. I literally shouted out loud.

Best Speech of the Night: Without a doubt, Meryl Streep. America Ferrera and Sacha Baron Cohen put in some good tries. Peter Morgan's speech was wonderful but it was ALL Meryl. What a woman. I loved the 'Oh shut up, its not that long!'.

Best Dressed: Cameron Diaz was the only person who looked awful, with everyone else looking pretty hot. It amazes me how sexy Helen Mirren is at 61 but the cake has to go to Rachel Weisz. Why couldn't she look this hot last year when she was winning everything? Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Evangeline Lilly and Kate Winslet were also in various stages of hotness.

Most Drunk: An award that can only be given at the globes. This is year was a disappointment here. No one was OFF their face like, say, Sharon Stone or Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has been in the past and during the cut aways a lot of people looked pissed off. Particularly Diddy when in conversation with Jay-Z.

Table that Looked like the Most Fun?: Well, if you'd asked me before I'd have said the Fox table were Sacha Baron Cohen and Meryl Streep were seated would've been the best, but there simply weren't enough shenanigans to compete. I'd say its close between the Ugly Betty table, where everyone seemed to have a good time and genuinely like each other and the Warren Beatty/Annette Bening/Jack Nicholson table that was the centre of attention the whole night through.

The winners you ask?

Best Picture, Drama: Babel

Best Actor, Drama: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Best Picture Musical/Comedy: Dreamgirls

Best Actor Musical/Comedy: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Score: The Painted Veil

Foreign Film: Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Screenplay: The Queen

Best Supporting Actor - Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Best Actress, Musical/Comedy - Meryl Streep, Devil Wears Prada

Best Animated Film: Cars

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Original Song: Prince for 'Song From the Heart', Happy Feet

TV:

Best Actress, Comedy: America Ferrera, Ugly Betty

Best Comedy Series, TV: Ugly Betty

Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock

Best Actress, Mini Series: Helen Mirren, Elizabeth I

Best Actor, Mini Series: Bill Nighy, Gideon's Daughter

Best Mini Series: Elizabeth I

Best Actor, Drama: Hugh Laurie, House

Best Supporting Actress - Mini Series: Emily Blunt, Gideon's Daughter

Best Actress, TV, Drama: Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth I

Golden Globe Predictions

The Globes are on tomorrow morning, so I felt the need...

Best Picture-Drama: The Departed
Alternate: The Queen

Best Picture-Comedy/Musical: Little Miss Sunshine
Alternate: Dreamgirls

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Actor-Drama: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Alternate: Peter O'Toole, Venus

Best Actress-Drama: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Best Actor-Comedy/Musical: Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat

Best Actress-Comedy/Musical: Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Best Supporting Actor: Jack Nicholson, The Departed
Alternate: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet
Alternate: Cars

Best Foreign Language Film: Letters From Iwo Jima
Alternate: Pan's Labyrinth/Volver

Best Screenplay: The Queen
Alternate: Babel

Best Original Score: Babel
Alternate: The Painted Veil

Best Original Song: Happy Feet

Awards Update

Helen Mirren is nominated thrice for this year's Golden Globes for The Queen and, for the television films, Prime Suspect 6 and Elizabeth I

Much has happened since my last update, with the big critics groups having announced their winners and the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations last night. Critics group wise, all you need to know is that everyone is split on the Best Picture race: the NY critics went for United 93 (which gives director Paul Greengrass a large push to get the lone director slot), LA critics repeated the Clint love for Letters but gave Greengrass their Best Director award. Scorsese took Best Director in New York. The Boston critics went crazy for The Departed and, surprisingly, gave their Best Supporting Actor award, not to Nicholson but, to co-star Mark Wahlberg (who's looking better and better for an Oscar nom). The Queen also recieved a major boost from the LA critics coming runner-up for Best Picture and winning awards for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Speaking of The Queen, Helen Mirren has now won every single Best Actress award bestowed so far. Forest Whitaker's no slouch either, his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland has won all but one prize. That was a minor critics group but the winner also tied with Whitaker for the LA Best Actor prize: Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat, who could turn out to be a major spoiler.

Now that's done, let's move onto the Golden Globe nominees:

Best Picture-Drama
Babel
Bobby
The Departed
Little Children
The Queen

The Departed and The Queen lead the race here with Bobby and Little Children being the major surprises. Could Bobby suddenly gather up steam and overcome tepid reviews. It's doubtful and we should all be thankful for that. Babel also did well gaining the most nominations (7), but it seems like it's more of an HFPA film rather than one the Academy will eventually go for.

Best Picture-Comedy/Musical
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
Thank You For Smoking

Pretty good category. No surprises but it is a strong lineup, nevertheless. Dreamgirls should bag this one easily seeing as it's this year's big Oscar dog but the shocking Best Director snub tells me either Borat or LMS could upset.

Best Director
Clint Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK on Eastwood double nom. So. Fucking. Unnecessary. Marty will probably win and the Frears nom just adds more steam to The Queen's rather formidable engine.

Best Actor-Drama
Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed
Peter O'Toole in Venus
Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland

It's nice to see Leo get double nominations here but it worries me. All this indecision between his two films means that his chances of getting an Oscar nomination are deteriorating. And damnit, HFPA, is it too much to fucking ask for you to nominate Ryan Gosling? assholes. At least, his Oscar hopes aren't too damaged.

Best Actor-Comedy/Musical
Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat
Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Aaron Eckhart in Thank You For Smoking
Chiwitel Ejiofor in Kinky Boots
Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction

Boring category: Depp and Ferrell's noms are dull and unimaginative. Good for Eckhart-he's a brilliant actor. Cohen takes this in a cakewalk.

Best Actress-Drama
Penolope Cruz in Volver
Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby
Helen Mirren in The Queen
Kate Winslet in Little Children

Replace either Gyllenhaal or Winslet with Streep and you've got a good idea of who the final Best Actress lineup will be. This award already has Dame Mirren's name on it (the three nominations she recieved only helps her case). Unless the other Dame can get some last minute traction for, what is supposed to be, the best performance of her career.

Best Actress-Comedy/Musical
Annette Bening in Running with Scissors
Toni Collete in Little Miss Sunshine
Beyonce Knowles in Dreamgirls
Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
Renee Zellweger in Miss Potter

Golden Globe, meet your new owner, Meryl Streep. This is hers, and deservingly so. Unless, he HFPA give into their usual starfucking and give it to Beyonce, eh. Love that Toni Collete got in but the Breslin snub is puzzling.

Best Supporting Actor
Ben Affleck in Hollywoodland
Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls
Jack Nicholson in The Departed
Brad Pitt in Babel
Mark Wahberg in The Departed

Wierdly star-packed lineup. THRILLED that Wahlberg got in, he stole every fucking scene he was in. The Michael Sheen snub means nothing since Miramax submitted him in lead here and the LAFCA win has pretty much solidified his nom.

Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barazza in Babel
Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal
EMILY FUCKING BLUNT IN THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA!!!!!!!!!!
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi in Babel

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!!!! Cannot believe they actually went for Blunt's wonderful work. Streep wasn't the only one working her ass off and it's good to see Blunt get the recognition after critics pretty much ignored her. The rest of the category is a snorefest and I wouldn't worry about the snub for Catherine O'Hara for For Your Consideration. After all both Amy Adams and Catherine Keener were ignored here last year and O'Hara's pretty much in the same position.

Screenplay
Babel
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
The Queen

Again, the Little Children love is surprising. All in all, this is a good category.

Best Foreign Language Film
Apocalypto
Letters From Iwo Jima
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
Volver

The fact that Gibson and Eastwood were allowed to pass of their films in this category simply because their in a dead and foreign language, respectively, is utter bullshit. Letters will win unless the HFPA is feeling adventurous. Volver is divine and the other two films are said to be two of the best, if not the best, films of the year.

That's all for now, folks. Music year-end picks comes tomorrow.

and the Awards Season Begins...

The National Board of Review kicked off awards season as always by announcing there winners on Wednesday. The NBR is a 'critics' group of 'elite' movie-watchers who usually give their awards to whichever studio buttered them up the most, so the winners need to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, they have an impact on the race and officially start award season. The winners are:

Best Film: Letters From Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed (Warner Bros.)
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (Fox)
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen (Miramax)
Best Supporting Actor: Dijmon Honsou, Blood Diamond (Warner Bros.)
Best Supporting Actress: Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration (Warner Independent)
Best Foreign Film: Volver (Sony Pictures Classics)
Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics)
Best Animated Feature: Cars (Buena Vista Pictures)
Best Ensemble Cast: The Departed (Warner Bros.)
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson (ThinkFilm) (!!!) Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: (2) Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (Dreamworks) and Rinko Kikuchi, Babel (Paramount Vantage)
Best Directorial Debut: Jason Reitman, Thank You for Smoking (Fox Searchlight)
Best Original Screenplay: Zach Helm, Stranger Than Fiction (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Ron Nyswaner, The Painted Veil (Warner Independent)

The top 10 from the National Board of Review:

"Letters From Iwo Jima" (Warner Bros.)

"Babel" (Paramount Vantage)

"Blood Diamond" (Warner Bros.)

"The Departed" (Warner Bros.)

"The Devil Wears Prada" (20th Century Fox)

"Flags Of Our Fathers" (Warner Bros.)

"The History Boys" (Fox Searchlight)

"Little Miss Sunshine" (Fox Searchlight)

"Notes on a Scandal" (Fox Searchlight)

"The Painted Veil" (Warner Independent)

The results pretty much launches 'Letters' position as big Oscar contender and makes Warner's last minute decision to pull it into a 2006 release a very smart one. 'Letters' is, of course, the second part of Eastwood's ambitious WWII project, the first being 'Flags of Our Fathers', which flopped at the box office, prompting the studio to quickly pull the even more ambitious 'Letters', which tells the Japanese side of the battle of Iwo Jima and is entirely in Japanese, into a one week qualifying run this year. I can't say I'm thrilled that this incessant Eastwood worship does not seem to have stopped. Just when it seemed like Scorsese was finally the frontrunner to win (and for a great film), Eastwood comes chomping back for his third serving. Scorsese's win is promising and is, perhaps, a hint of how the year may turn out: with yet another Best Pic/Director split.

Whitaker's win also brings him as formidable force in the race. The actor needs all the awards he can get, if he wants to regain any of the buzz he had two months ago. Mirren's win was a foregone conclusion and simply assures everyone that she'll be holding that Oscar come February. The supporting winners are the big surprises here but they possibly won't make too much of an impact in the race as NBR is never really on the same track as Oscar when it comes to these two categories. Still, it's nice to see O'Hara mentioned and can only help her towards Oscar.

As for the rest, 'Dreamgirls' manages one meager win for former-American Idol Jennifer Hudson bringing her one step closer to that inevitable Oscar. Rinko Kikuchi gets some nice ink and Ryan fucking Gosling (!!) gets recognized for his superlative work in 'Half Nelson'. 'The Painted Veil' mention is a surprise but seems to hint at what I've suspected for a while, this may become a big Oscar player. The biggest impression the awards have made is in leaving out gung-ho frontrunners 'Dreamgirls' and 'The Queen' out of their top-ten, neither is brutally hurt by this but both will need major support from other bodies to back up their 'lock' status in the Best Picture lineup. What's even odder is that both films have been passed over for lack-luster efforts like 'The Devil Wears Prada', 'The History Boys' and 'Flags of Our Fathers'. But if you look at the studios, you'll notice that most every award is divided between Fox and Warner and their independent divisions... so, again, a grain of salt.

Post on the Grammy nominations later today...