Oscar Predictions

Best Actor:

Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Didn't see it, and some are saying it's more of a supporting performance, but I've always liked Whitaker. He should have won an Emmy for his turn on The Shield last year.

Best Supporting Actor:

Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine

Frontrunner Eddie Murphy has pissed off a lot of people in Hollywood, so Arkin might get the lifetime achievement Oscar.

Best Actress:

Helen Mirren - The Queen

No idea - she is the frontrunner.

Best Supporting Actress:

Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls

Same here -- another frontrunner, I have no desire to ever see a musical. My wife and I tried to watch Moulin Rouge a few years ago and had to turn it off. While I can suspend disbelief for any sci-fi movie, musicals just don't work for me.

Best Animated Feature:

Cars

Not a NASCAR fan, and plus the running time for this one was too long to take my kids to see. They have very short attention spans. I did take one of my kids to see Happy Feet and I was bored to tears and so was my son. It wasn't even visually interesting, with a lot of white-on-white scenes.

Best Director:

Martin Scorsese - The Departed

Finally, Scorsese gets his Oscar, plus The Departed was probably the best movie I saw last year in the theater.

Best Documentary:

An Inconvenient Truth

I saw it on a plane, over two flights, but it was intriguing. We saw the also nominated Jesus Camp a few days ago. I was impressed by the objectivity of the filmmakers on that one, but it was actually a little boring.

Film Editing:

United 93

Didn't see it, don't think I could take it, but it should win something.

Original Score:

Babel

I guess.

Original Song:

"I Need to Wake Up" - An Inconvenient Truth

AIT is on a roll.

Best Picture:

The Departed

Of the nominated pictures, I only saw this and Little Miss Sunshine. I hope The Departed wins, but Babel seems to be the type of movie the Academy likes. While LMS was pretty funny, it was predictible, and a central scene was copped from National Lampoon's Vacation. LMS shouldn't even be nominated here, but it seems as though every year some oddball picture has to be nomintated to shake things up. Only once in recent memory has one of "doesn't fit" movies won, and that was Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan, which is one of the biggest blunders in Oscar history in my opinion.

Best Visual Effects:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Not as good as the first Pirates movie (which I believe was overrated anyway), and Bill Nighy's makeup as the squid head Davy Jones was pretty distracting, but Pirates will be rewarded since it was the biggest grosser of the year.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Departed

Wishful thinking here again. I haven't seen Infernal Affairs on which The Departed is based, but I hear it's good. I haven't seen Little Children, but I did read the book, which was an excellent satire on American suburban life. Author Tom Perotta's books are hugely entertaining -- he also wrote Election (on which the movie was based).

Best Original Screenplay:

Little Miss Sunshine

The oddball might pull off an Oscar in this category. I'm not sure who the frontrunner is, maybe Babel?


Of the nominated films and performances, I've only seen:

The Pursuit of Happyness - B+ Will Smith was pretty effective, but the movie featured a lot of embellishments on what really happened.

Little Miss Sunshine - B It had me until the (completely unnecessary) Vacation ripoff

The Departed - A- The best movie I saw last year in the theater.

Happy Feet - C- Boring boring boring.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest - C All effects, and Johnny Depp as Sparrow was a little too much this time.

The Devil Wears Prada - B I went with my wife on "date night" and it was better than I expected. Meryl Streep is pretty great in this flick.

An Inconvenient Truth - B+ See above

Jesus Camp - B See above

Click - B- Normally I like the stupid Adam Sandler flicks, they are pretty brainless yet entertaining. Anything with Walken in it is usually watchable.

Poseidon - C- Saw it because of Richard Dreyfuss, we interviewed him while he was filming this one. Josh Lucas is a very bland leading man.

Superman Returns - B- I had such high hopes for this one, but I actually fell asleep during it.

Borat - B+ Very, very funny, but the hype kind of ruined it for me.