Final Oscar Predictions (Now With Confidence Percentages!)

With three and a half days to go, I figured the chances of change in the following is pretty slim. So in the interest of getting it done and enjoying my time in Los Angeles, here are my final Oscar predictions.

The categories I’m least confident about: best actor (I change my mind every day), best supporting actress (any of them could be argued, Penelope just feels right.. but Davis would be my close second choice), best original screenplay (its ripe for “WALL-E”), best foreign film (similar to best actor), and my suggested “Slumdog” sweep of editing, cinematography, song, sound editing and sound mixing, any of which it could lose to “The Dark Knight” (except song) or “WALL-E” (except cinematography). “Slumdog”‘s massive approval rating might have soured a bit in the past few weeks, and I fear some voters might be thinking overkill. But that didn’t happen with “The Lord of the Rings,” “American Beauty” or “No Country For Old Men,” so I don’t see why it would happen here.

Check out indieWIRE.com tomorrow for a predictions chart of some of our writers, bloggers and friends, for both the Oscars and the Spirits (including my Spirits predictions, which I opted to save for the main site).

Enjoy:

Best Picture:
Will Win: “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 96%)
Should Win: Out of these five, “Milk,” but after this I’m going with options outside the potential five.

Best Director:
Will Win: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 94%)
Should Win: Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight”

Best Actress:
Will Win: Kate Winslet, “The Reader” (confidence: 72%)
Should Win: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”

Best Actor:
Will Win: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler” (confidence: 50.1%)
Should Win: Rourke, though to have it be a neck-and-neck race between the two truly finest male lead performances of the year is fantastic.

Best Supporting Actress:
Will Win/Should Win: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (confidence: 53%)

Best Supporting Actor:
Will Win/Should Win: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight” (confidence: 99.8%)

Best Original Screenplay:
Will Win: Dustin Lance Black, “Milk” (confidence: 56%)
Should Win: Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche, New York”

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will Win: Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 88%)
Should Win: Francois Begaudeau, Robin Campillo and Laurent Cantet, “The Class”

Best Animated Film:
Will Win/Should Win: “WALL-E” (confidence: 95%)

Best Foreign Language Film:
Will Win: “Waltz With Bashir” (confidence: 50.5%)
Should Win: “Waltz” or “The Class” are both fine by me. Non-nominees (for various reasons) “Gomorrah,” “Let The Right One In” and “A Christmas Tale” are also all very deserving.

Best Documentary:
Will Win: “Man on Wire” (confidence: 70%)
Should Win: Any of the four I’ve seen (sorry “The Garden,” I’ll get there) would make inspired choices.

Best Cinematography:
Will Win: Anthony Dod Mantle, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 75%)
Should Win: Wally Pfister, “The Dark Knight”

Best Editing:
Will Win: Chris Dickens, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 79%)
Should Win: Lee Smith, “The Dark Knight”

Best Original Song:
Will Win: “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 59%)
Should Win: “The Wrestler” from “The Wrestler”

Best Original Score:
Will Win: A.R. Rahman, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 80%)
Should Win: Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, “The Dark Knight”

Best Art Direction:
Will Win/Should Win: Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (confidence: 79%)

Best Costume Design:
Will Win: Jacqueline West, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (confidence: 51%)
Should Win: Eiko Ishioka, “The Fall”

Best Makeup:
Will Win/Should Win: Greg Cannom, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (confidence: 84%)

Best Visual Effects:
Will Win/Should Win: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (confidence: 82%)

Best Sound Editing:
Will Win: Tom Sayers, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 53%)
Should Win: Ben Burtt, Matthew Wood, “WALL-E”

Best Sound Mixing:
Will Win: Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty, “Slumdog Millionaire” (confidence: 53%)
Should Win: Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt, “WALL-E”

thelostboy posted to Awards Season on February 19, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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