Top Prizes

Just over 48 hours left to go, and here are my final two predictions.

Best Director
Who Will Win: Ok, I'm going to do it. I do this every year even though I totally no better, and always end up making some wild prediction completely convinced it will happen. Last year I thought Peter O'Toole would win best actor, in previous years I've thought Julianne Moore would win best supporting actress, I thought Titanic would get shut out, and this year I'm predicting Julian Schnabel will win best director. It'll be a first, no director has ever won for a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture. However, on Julian's side is that fact that over the past 10 years, the academy has bucked almost 40 years' worth of tradition and issued several split decisions on director and picture (Stephen Spielberg and Shakespeare in Love, Steven Soderburgh and Gladiator, Roman Polanski and Chicago, and Ang Lee and Crash). While the academy routinely issued these split decisions in the 30's and into the 40's, somewhere around the end of World War II they started showing solidarity between picture and director, splitting only a handful of times until the late 90's. That makes it at least somewhat more likely that they would consider Schnabel, who has already won an armload of awards, without necessarily being concerned that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn't nominated for best picture. There's a chance they could go with the Coen brothers for No Country, but they've shown a dislike of the brothers in the past, how else can you explain the snub of Fargo in favor of the bloated, boring, insipid The English Patient? I don't think they'll overcome that now even though the movie should steamroll most of the other categories. While I consider Paul Thomas Anderson a genius, the academy again has refused several times to concur and he's out of luck. Tony Gilroy and Jason Reitman, for Michael Clayton and Juno, are also out of the running, genre pieces don't win best director. The last director to win for a comedy was Woody Allen over 30 years ago, and while Erin Brokovich was up for director, I can't even remember the last time a legal procedural actually won.

Who Should Win: The Coen Brothers, and maybe it's that fact that's keeping me from predicting a win for them. They so deserved the award for Fargo and it was heartbreaking to see them lose after Fargo had been built up for almost 10 months as the movie to beat only to see The English Patient sweep in just under the cutoff and win everything. The academy so rarely rewards the truly deserving for their truly deserving work that I'm reluctant to believe they'll do it now. Still, it did happen for Roman Polanksi, maybe, just maybe, they'll be ready to do it again.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: For putting up with all the crap I said about him before getting a chance to see the finished product, Tim Burton hands down should have gotten a long overdue nomination here. Sweeney Todd was quite an achievement, one that he can rightfully be proud of, and I can't understand what the academy was thinking shutting him out again.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Easily enough, Jason Reitman. Nothing about Juno deserved to be nominated, not here, not in any category.

Best Picture
Who Will Win: And we thought last year was up in the air! At least we could narrow down the field to 3 probables and 2 less probables, although I did pick the wrong probable. This year, any of them could win, including Juno. Atonement was the early favorite, but while it won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA, it's lost just about everything else. Juno and Michael Clayton are genre pictures, which usually don't win, and like I said earlier, if Little Miss Sunshine couldn't win last year, Juno definitely won't win this year. Plus, all three of these movies did not get nominated for Best Editing, and no movie has ever won best picture without at least being nominated for editing, which was an early indication 2 years ago that Brokeback wasn't going to go all the way. That leaves No Country and Blood, both of which have editing nominations, and both of which completely deserve to win. The edge goes to No Country though, having picked up more awards throughout the night, the academy will give it the final big one.

Who Should Win: This is a tough call for me, I was fond of Atonement, but really No Country For Old Men is the one for me. It's bleak, violent, relentless, and completely perfect.

Who Should Have Been Nominated: Another tough one on a personal level. In a year that gave us Once, Hairspray, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Rescue Dawn, Harry Potter, Enchanted, and In The Valley of Elah, it's hard to pick just one here. Still, I'm going to have to go with my theme and say that Sweeney Todd should have been much more recognized than it was. The academy rarely seems to like Golden Globe comedy/musical winners, having only recognized Chicago in recent memory with a nomination after it won the Golden Globe. Dreamgirls, Nurse Betty, Walk the Line, and now Sweeney Todd all won best comedy/musical at the Golden Globes only to find themselves shut out of the oscar race, and Sweeney now joins the ranks of the egregiously overlooked (except in Dreamgirls' case, that was justifiably overlooked). The academy shouldn't punish good movies just because they justifiably dislike the Golden Globes and the fact that they have two best pictures.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated: Wrapping up my other theme, Juno is so completely out of place here. Other than last year, there's always at least one, and this year she's it.

So, how did I do? We'll have to watch Sunday and find out. While I'll try to post some updates during the show, I'm not going to be doing live posting like I was for the Tony's. We've had our friend from Prague staying with us and he's flying back home at 9:00 pm on Sunday, and we have to get him to the airport. Still, that means we have to have him there by 7, which should give me just enough time to get back home in time to fast forward the Tivo through the monologue and catch up with the awards. I'd urge the everyone to remember the lessons learned last year: start with some real awards like the supporting acting awards to grab our interest; practice your lines ahead of time, don't try to wing it; subtitles are highly preferable over Clint Eastwood for providing translation; classiness is always preferable over crassness; no matter how overwhelmed you are at winning, look to Judi Dench as your speech giving model and keep it under 30 seconds; and lastly, once the show runs long, nix everything except the awards, no contortionists, montages, musical numbers, tributes, sound effects choirs, special presentations, comedy bits, etc. Once you hit 3 hours, name the category, list the nominees, announce the winner, quick acceptance speech, then next category and keep repeating unil the end. Look for my thoughts on Monday as well as a review of Linda Eder's Saturday night concert with the Rosemont Pops. Let's hope she learned some lessons too and skips the harmonica impressario this time.