Oscars: The rat race

Oscars are my favorite televised event. It's a popularity contest. If you want to celebrate great cinema, Oscar is not the place. Barring a few times when they do get it right (recently No Country For Old Men).

I'm saying all this but every year since 1999 I've been avidly watching them. Not missed a single one. Not even when I had exams the very next day. Why? Because it's a fucking good show! Seriously. These guys know how to put up a great great show.

My favorite part of the show is predicting who will win. Its fun to predict and know who may win what. It becomes boring watching it if you don't know. Every year I try to predict them and I get better at it every year. But all through these years I've realized that NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.

Predictions after the jump




But, the best predictors of these awards are the Guilds, Globes and BAFTAs (in that order). Critics awards matter but they aren't the final word. This year, The Social Network won all the Critics awards (seriously, ALL). This hasn't happened. EVER. Then it won the Globes. It was Slumdog/ Hurt Locker all over again. The Best Picture winner had been decided.

Then came the force that was The King's Speech. It won ALL the Guilds. DGA, PGA, SAG ensemble. It didn't win WGA only because it wasn't eligible. Of course, it won the BAFTA. You may say it's done. The King's Speech is the winner and maybe it is. But you still don't know anything. The Social Network could still sneak in.

There could also be a split. Picture could go to The King's Speech. Director/Editing/Screenplay could go to TSN. It's possible. Last time this happened was in 2005, 2002 and 2000. Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash. The Pianist lost to Chicago and Traffic lost to Gladiator.

But Brokeback Mountain, The Pianist and Traffic all won Best Director. Usually, the best picture of the year also deserves to won best director (why else would it be the best, right?)


Wrong. This is a game and Harvey Weinstein (Weinstein Company, producer of The King's Speech) knows how to play it really well. His campaign for The King's Speech is smart. "Some movies make you feel" Oscars dig movies with heart and to make them believe here's another one for you is the trick. He stole the Best Picture Oscar from Saving Private Ryan in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love. That time, again, Saving Private Ryan was a sure shot winner. And yes, Spielberg won Best Director. Another split. 

Could it happen again? or will we see a sweep? A realistic person would say The King's Speeh sweeps. Spileberg is presenting Best Picture this time. Last time he presented this award, Lord of the Rings swept all 11.. remember those words? Spielberg opened the envelope and said "Its a clean sweep!".. Are we gonna hear something like that again? We will know tomorrow.


My predictions: (in the order of the presentation)

Best Art Direction

Inception

(Alt: The King's Speech)

Best Cinematography

True Grit

(Alt: Inception)

Best Supporting Actress

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

(Alt: Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech)

Best Animated Feature

Toy Story 3

(Alt: The Illusionist)

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Social Network

(Alt: None. This is already Aaron Sorkin's)

Best Original Screenplay

The King’s Speech

(Alt: Inception)

Best Foreign Language Film

In A Better World

(Alt: Biutiful)

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

(Alt: Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech)

Best Original Score

Alexandre Desplat, The King’s Speech

(Alt: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network)

Sound mixing

Inception

(Alt:True Grit)

Best Sound Editing

Inception

(Alt: True Grit)

Best Make-up

The Way Back

(Alt: The Wolf Man)

Best Costume Design

The King’s Speech

(Alt: True Grit)

Best Documentary Feature

Inside Job

Alt: Exit Through The Gift Shop

Best Visual Effects

Inception

(Alt: Alice in Wonderland)

Best Film Editing

The Social Network

(Alt: The King’s Speech)

Best Original Song

We Belong Together from Toy Story 3

(Alt: If I Rise from 127 Hours)

Best Director

David Fincher, The Social Network

(Alt: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech)

Best Actress

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

(Alt: Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right)

Best Actor

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

(Alt: None. This award is already Firth's)

Best Picture

The King’s Speech

(Alt: The Social Network)

(Changes made just now) (Was predicting a King's Speech sweep before but where's the fun in that?)

I’m predicting a King’s Speech/ The Social Network split.The Social Network wins 4 awards (Going down in history as a Brokeback Mountain i.e. a great film still remembered). The King's Speech wins 5 (like Crash i.e. a popular film at the time, forgotten later/ remembered as an Oscar screw up). Inception gets 4.

(These changes I made because more than getting it "right" for my predictions, I care about rooting for the best films of the year as pragmatically as I can)

The Academy has shown great courage giving its main award to films like Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country For Old Men. These are not typical Oscar films. Yet, they won. In two of these cases, they really were great films which will be remembered and talked about.

If this trend continues, The Social Network should be the one sweeping but it won’t. It can win 5 awards at best if it wins Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Editing and Score. But that’s not very likely. It should be but it isn’t. The Academy is going back to the “Oscar film” this year. Clearly they related more to the post WW2 era than today. (I’m gonna be passing a lot of these snide remarks come Monday when this actually happens)

It will be foolish to predict Inception for the big wins. Clearly, the Academy does not love it.

Let's see how many I get right this time.