Oscar Weekend Special: Prediction Blog One

So its all come down to the Oscars tomorrow night and the 5th Annual Oscar Blog will be making its appearance sometime during the week. But as I have the film blog now I am doing a weekend of predicting all 23 of the categories and also giving my own views on what should win. Most of the categories I will rank in a top 5 list of what I'd prefer to win and the nominee in bold indicates who I think WILL win. As you can expect I don't agree with a lot of what I think will win but that's jsut me being difficult as usual.

The first blog starts with what I consider the 'secondary' awards. I'm not meaning to be insulting to any cinematographers, art directors, sound editors or short animators (or tall animators come to that) but these are sort of the 'backstage' awards that a lot of us, myself not included, have to wait through to get to the acting and directing stuff. But this year the cinematographers et al have contributed to some of the biggest films of the year and you can probably work out straight away what I think should win Best Picture.

Best Achievement in Cinematography 

 1. Inception (Wally Pfister)

2. Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)

3. True Grit (Roger Deakins)

4. The King’s Speech (Danny Cohen) 

5. The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)

To kick off this blog with a category that I’m not quite sure what will win. Personally I would really like Inception to take home as many awards as possible and as the cinematography in that film is the most interesting of the five here as it moulds the different dream levels together and works in different ways throughout the film to amp up the tension. Wally Pfister is the slight favourite here but I think the Academy will award honour Roger Deakins who has been nominated many times but has never won. His work on True Grit is very good indeed, not his best, but still adds a lot of detail and character to the film which would’ve been lost in lesser hands. I also enjoyed Matthew Libatique’s work in Black Swan both during the ballet sequences and the avant garde sequences as Nina starts to lose her mind. But I just have a feeling in my water that this is Deakins’ year.

Best Achievement in Editing 

1.127 Hours (Jon Harris)

2.Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum) 

3.The Social Network (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall) 

4. The Fighter (Pamela Martin)

5. The King’s Speech (Tariq Anwar)

Here I feel Baxter and Wall’s work on The Social Network will win this award mainly due to the fact that they deftly cut between the two different timelines with ease. Saying that I preferred the work done in both 127 Hours and Black Swan the former because of all the quick cuts between Aaron’s body parts to demonstrate his worry and anguish that he may never get out of the situation and the latter that ramps up the tension and cuts between various characters facial expression quickly cutting between Nina and Lily’s faces on the other characters’ bodies.

Best Achievement in Art Direction

1. Inception (Guy Hendrix Dias, Larry Dias and Douglas A Mowatt) 

2. The King’s Speech (Eve Stewart and Judy Farr) 

3. True Grit (Jess Gonchor and Nancy Haigh)

4. Alice in Wonderland (Robert Stromberg and Karen O’Hara)

5. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part One (Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan)

Of course this award should go to Inception for its differently designed dream levels and its use of spaces, and it did win the BAFTA, however I feel that the academy will go to The King’s Speech. Personally I feel that one of the best things about The King’s Speech was its Art Direction from the period detail downed to the design of Logue’s room where a lot of the action takes place everything was designed meticulously and I have no problem with it winning. Of the other three only True Grit’s scenery and dedication to the recreation of a Western town really impressed me.

Best Achievement in Costume Design

1. Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood) 

2. The Tempest (Sandy Powell)

3. The King’s Speech (Jenny Beavan)

4. True Grit (Mary Zorphes)

5. I Am Love (Antonella Cannarozzi)

Again it seems to be a battle between Collen Atwood and Sandy Powell, the latter of whom won last year for The Young Victoria and the former who will probably take this year’s prize. The costumes in Alice in Wonderland were by far the best thing about it and Atwood, already a two-time winner, really put love and care into making each costume fit the character and bring it to life. Powell’s designs on The Tempest were also fantastic mixing together classic Shakespearian garb and giving it a modern twist. If Alice in Wonderland doesn’t win this award then it will most likely go to The King’s Speech and costume did play a vital role in that film with the transposition between George VI’s royal regalia and Logue’s tatty suits. In fact all of this year’s nominees are perfectly deserving of the award as costume did play a vital role in all five.

Best Achievement in Music: Original Score 

1. The Social Network (Trent Reznor) 

2. 127 Hours (A R Rahman)

3. Inception (Hans Zimmer)

4. The King’s Speech (Alexandre Desplat)

5. How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell)

An interesting mixture here in which only Powell’s traditional animation score for How to Train Your Dragon is perhaps undeserving and should’ve been replaced with Clint Mansell’s haunting Black Swan music. Desplat, who won the BAFTA, may be in here but mainly because the Americans believe that the rousing music in the film’s conclusion was composed by him and not by Beethoven. I really enjoyed Hans Zimmer’s booming and tense Inception music and A R Rahman’s well paced and energetic 127 Hours offering. But there can only be one winner here Trent Reznor and his interesting mix of styles in The Social Network in which he transplants a central theme that stays in your head long after you’ve seen the film.

Best Achievement in Music: Original Song 

1. We Belong Together by Randy Newman (From Toy Story 3) 

2. If I Rise by Dido and A R Rahman (From 127 Hours) 

3. I See the Light by Alan Menken (From Tangled)

4. Coming Home by Tom Douglas, Hilary Lindsey and Troy Vergas (From Country Strong)

It will be astounding if such a visual film as 127 Hours only wins the award for Best Song. having said that the number by Dido and Rahman is possibly the most interesting and off-beat of the four on offer here. Personally I would like to see Newman recognised for his work on all three Toy Story films with a win here and that may well happen but I’m going for the 127 Hours number in which, on the night, Florence Welch will take over from Dido and sing it which can only be a good thing. But as long as Coming Home, which will be performed on the night by Gwyneth Paltrow, doesn’t win then I’m fine.

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing 

1. Inception (Laura Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick) 

2. True Grit (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F Kurland) 

3. The King’s Speech (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley) 

4. Salt (Jeffrey J Haboush, William Sarokin, Scott Millan and Greg P Russell) 

5. The Social Network (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)

The mixture of sounds used in Inception and the way in which Zimmer’s soundtrack is boomed throughout the film can be the only sensible choice of this line-up. 

Best Achievement in Sound Editing  

1. Inception (Richard King)

2. Tron: Legacy (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)

3. Toy Story 3 (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)

4. True Grit (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)

5. Unstoppable ( Mark P Stoeckinger)

Again a lot of different sound effects to edit together means that Richard King’s work on Inception is really the only choice here.  

Best Achievement in Visual Effects 

1. Inception (Chris Corbould, Andre Lockley, Pete Bebb and Paul J Franklin)

2. Alice in Wonderland (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)

3. Hereafter  (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojansky and Joe Farrell)

4. Iron Man 2 (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)

5. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part One ( (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)

I think this will wrap up Inception’s trio of awards as the special effects team did a wonderful job on this film from making the building fold in on itself to the floating scenes in the elevator shaft. While Alice in Wonderland’s effects were fairly impressive and I did like the tsunami recreation in Hereafter, Inception is the only winner here.

Best Achievement in Make-Up 

1. The Wolfman (Rick Baker and Dave Elsey) 

2. Barney’s Version (Adrian Morot)

3. The Way Back (Eduoard F Henriques, Greg Funk and Yolanda Toussieng)

Unusually none of the three nominees here were nominated for the make-up and hair award at the BAFTAs so there’s no indication who’s going to win. But seeing as six-time former winner Rick Baker is involved and The Wolfman is the only one of these three films to heavily use a lot of make-up I’m making that my prediction. However, Black Swan should be in this list and should rightfully be the winner.

Best Documentary Short

Nominees:

Killing in the Name

Poster Girl

Strangers No More

Sun Come Up

The Warriors of Qiugang

It may come as no surprise that I haven’t watched any of these short documentaries however I have watched trailers and clips of all. There does seem to be a lot of interesting subject matters – Poster Girl about an all-American cheerleader turned ruthless soldier, Son Come Up about Pacific islanders forced to move from their habitat and The Warriors of Quigang about a village community coming together to rise up against a chemical company. The winner could be Strangers no More about a school in Tel Aviv that brings together children of all races and religions. However I suspect the winner will Killing in the Name a film made by a Muslim man whose wedding was invaded by suicide bombers who killed 27 members of his family including his and his new wife’s fathers. The film looks incredibly moving and shocking but with a big question behind it, it is also very relevant to what shockingly is still happening today.

Best Animated Short

Nominees:

Day and Night

The Gruffalo

Let’s Pollute

The Lost Thing

Madagascar: A Journey Diary

In last year’s animated short category a French satirical film beat the Pixar short that aired before Up. That could happen again this year with Let’s Pollute, a film that mocks the public information films, going up against Day and Night which aired before Toy Story 3. Of the clips and trailers I’ve watched my favourite was the Australian, The Lost Thing a kind of stop-motion fantasy film but I think the popular choice will reign supreme and Day and Night will get it. If not it will most likely go to a film I didn’t really care for, another French film – Madagascar: A Journey Diary which sort of had a mish-mash of animated styles but wasn’t very engaging. The British hope here – The Gruffalo doesn’t really have a chance against the mighty Pixar offering.

Best Live Action Short

Nominees:

The Confession

The Crush

God of Love

Na Wewe

Wish 143

A good category for the British Isles – the English The Confession and The Irish The Crush are both contenders up against Na Wewe a film about the conflict in Burundi and God of Love an American indie comedy about a jazz singer who is given love darts from God. But I think the Brits will win here with Wish 143 a film packed with proper actors and has an interesting subject matter about a boy who is dying of cancer and wants to lose his virginity before he goes. The film’s selling point is that the director Ian Barnes recovered from cancer himself so there’s a personal touch to this bittersweet comedy. 

Next up in the predictions we have the awards for acting, directing and writing plus the animated, foreign and documentary features.