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He Said She Said - Oscar Picks |
In a welcome change, the acting categories
at this year’s Academy Awards seem like
foregone conclusions while the two biggies
Best Director and Best Picture remain
crapshoots. But this is for sure: the Academy
hates being called predictable (remember
Crash?); Al Gore is the frontrunner for an
Oscar (Best Documentary for An Inconvenient
Truth and nobody will ever care who wins
Best Live Action Short.
Pundits will tell you Forest Whitaker
and Helen Mirren have had the lead acting
awards all but on their mantelpiece since
their movies opened last fall (though each
took months to arrive in secondary markets),
and the fact that each has won just about
every award possible this season makes their
coronations on Sunday night seem inevitable.
BEST LEAD ACTOR
Will win: Forest Whitaker
Should win: Will Smith
In order to dethrone royalty (Whitaker
played Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last
King of Scotland and Mirren was Queen
Elizabeth II in The Queen) one must challenge,
disarm and captivate, all of which was
subtly mastered by Ryan Gosling as a crackaddicted
but well-meaning history teacher in
Half-Nelson. (The Academy doesn’t like,
much less reward, subtlety. You saw Crash
didn’t you?) Or one could don an accent in a
morally righteous movie, as Leonardo
DiCaprio did in Blood Diamond, or suppress
all one’s natural charm and screen presence
as Will Smith did in The Pursuit of Happyness.
Or you could get the sympathy vote: This is
the eighth nomination for screen legend Peter
O’Toole (Venus); with a loss he’ll surpass his
old friend Richard Burton for most nominations
without a win. Welcome to the record
books, Mr. O’Toole.
BEST LEAD ACTRESS
Will win: Helen Mirren
Should win: Judi Dench
Trying to usurp Mirren are Judi Dench as
a fantastically devious schoolmarm in Notes
on a Scandal, Penelope Cruz as a curvy and
loving mother in Volver, Kate Winslet as a
bored housewife in Little Children and Meryl
Streep as a thinly-disguised Anna Wintourhomage
in The Devil Wears Prada.
It’s Dench’s sixth nomination, Winslet’s
fifth (she’s only 31, with zero wins) and Streep’s
14th)—and none of them have a chance.
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: Eddie Murphy
Should win: Alan Arkin
Dreamgirls co-stars Jennifer Hudson and
Eddie Murphy are the favorites in the supporting
categories, but Murphy isn’t as much of a
lock as Hudson. Particularly when it’s hard to
find any critic who actually likes the movie.
Yes, Murphy won the Screen Actor‚s
Guild (SAG) and Golden Globe, but some
Academy members may be more inclined to
vote for the twice-nominated (in the 1960s!)
Alan Arkin, who was frank and crank as the
foul-mouthed grandpa in Little Miss
Sunshine. Getting their first nominations are
Mark Wahlberg for The Departed and Jackie
Early Haley in the little-seen Little Children
(in the comeback story of the year; he played
punk kid Kelly Leak in the original Bad
News Bears, and he’d long since left acting
when Sean Penn tapped him for All the
President’s Men).
Djimon Hounsou earned his second
nomination for Blood Diamond, and although
he’s always compelling to watch, he was
lucky to get that.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will win: Jennifer Hudson
Should win: Jennifer Hudson
Former American Idol wannabe Hudson
will have to fend off Babel co-stars Rinko
Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza (splitting their
votes), as well as Little Miss Sunshine herself,
Abigail Breslin. Also nominated is Cate
Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal (she won a
supporting actress award two years ago for
Martin Scorsese’s painful plea for Oscaradmiration
The Aviator, but isn’t likely to
make a second trip to the podium this year).
BEST DIRECTOR
Will win: Martin Scorsese
Should win: Martin Scorsese
Speaking of Scorsese, it appears to finally
be his turn to take home a Best Director
Oscar. On the strength of his Director’s Guild
Award and Golden Globe win, he’s the clear
favorite for The Departed. But Scorsese fans
have watched the master lose on five occasions,
the last of which was to Clint Eastwood
two years ago with Million Dollar Baby;
Eastwood is nominated this year for Letters
from Iwo Jima. Scorsese’s biggest competition,
however, appears to be from Babel director
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose film skillfully
intertwines four stories from all over the
world. (Academy voters loved Traffic, and
they loved Crash. They award editing-asdirecting
in a big way.) In the “just happy to
be nominated” class are Paul Greengrass for
United 93 and Stephen Frears for The Queen.
BEST PICTURE
Will win: Little Miss Sunshine
Should win: The Departed
Best Picture is more up for grabs than in any
year in recent memory. It seems to be down to
three: Little Miss Sunshine won the SAG Ensemble
award that Crash took home last year, and the
Producer’s Guild Award, another pre-cursor for
Best Picture; Babel has the type of sweeping,
moralistic feel the Academy loves to reward; and
The Departed may be the favorite given that the
winner of Best Director and Best Picture are usually
from the same movie. Also nominated are
Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima (rushed to release
in time for consideration when Eastwood’s Flags
of Our Fathers unexpectedly tanked last fall) and
The Queen (where Mirren’s awards will be considered
compensation enough).
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