Oscar Results

The Oscar results all were very much as expected - looking at my predictions for the winners on Saturday, I scored 18/24, which I believe is probably my best performance. Ignoring the 3 short film categories which were always going to be complete guesses, I only missed 3 awards:

Best Actor - Sean Penn beat Mickey Rourke, which is a shame. It's Bill Murray vs Sean Penn all over again. At least this time Penn's performance was genuinely good, but I'm getting a bit tired of the whole "biopic = instant acting Oscars" trend that has emerged over the past decade or so.

Best Foreign Language Film - To be fair, this wasn't much more than a guess either, but apparently the Japanese film Departures beating Waltz With Bashir is seen as somewhat of a surprise.

Best Sound Mixing - Sigh. As I feared, Slumdog Millionaire did indeed pick up a sound Oscar, but at least it didn't win both. Plus, mixing is probably the less ridiculous category for it to win.

Otherwise, it was the expected Slumdog steamroll, picking up 8 awards, with Benjamin Button on 3 and The Dark Knight on 2. I've heard seriously mixed opinions on the supposedly new-style telecast itself, something which I hope to watch at some point this week.

The full list of winners can be seen here.

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Oscars

The 2009 Oscar ceremony takes place tomorrow, and every year I usually make my final predictions about who will win in each category. I have to say that making my predictions this year just isn't all that interesting - it's been a foregone conclusion for months that Slumdog Millionaire will walk away with all the major awards and anyone who read my reviews of the Best Picture nominees in my last post will know that I wasn't exactly blown away by any of them.

I will admit that last year did generally seem a bit weak overall in terms of really good movies, but even so I can name 5 films that I believe are better than Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader or Slumdog. In no particular order:

The Dark Knight

The Wrestler

Revolutionary Road

In Bruges

WALL-E

I would add Cloverfield as well, but there's no way that would ever have been in the running for Oscars. The Dark Knight on the other hand got agonisingly close to nominations for Picture, Director and Screenplay, but at the last minute The Reader came out of nowhere to elbow it out. The fact that a Batman film still managed 8 nominations clearly shows that there was a lot of love for the film in Hollywood.

Anyway, on to my predictions. There is a very disturbing chance that Slumdog could actually win all 9 categories it's been nominated in - I've accepted the fact that it's getting the big prizes but the thought of it winning the sound categories over either WALL-E or The Dark Knight is just nonsense. I'm going to hold out hope that at least a little sense will prevail:

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Original Screenplay: Milk

Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Costume Design: The Duchess

Best Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Music, Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Music, Original Song: Slumdog Millionaire ("Jai-Ho")

Best Sound Mixing: The Dark Knight

Best Sound Editing: WALL-E

Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Animated Film: WALL-E

Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir

Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire

Best Documentary Short: The Final Inch

Best Short Film (Animated): Presto

Best Short Film (Live Action): The Pig

As usual, the last 3 categories are complete guesses, usually based on which nominee's title I like the most... As for the rest, most of them are safe choices, but some of the technicals could easily throw up a surprise - especially those damn sound categories. I guess I'll find out on Monday morning.

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