Guy’s final Oscar predictions

And so it comes to this: more months than I care to count of watching, thinking, sweating, fretting, writing, deleting and occasionally not caring boil down to single predictions in 24 categories. There’s a lot to get through here, and I’m not going to delay things with an introduction.

Well, except for this one caveat — apology, even — of sorts. As you wade through my list, you may notice that my predictions look quite similar to those of one Mr. Kris Tapley. Remarkably similar, in fact. Unhealthily similar, even.

What can I say? Short categories aside (which were subject to further research), the following predictions haven’t wavered in my mind since nomination day, over a month ago — and I see no compelling reason to go out on a limb this year. Sometimes great minds think alike. Frequently wrong, but alike nonetheless.

With that, my predictions, preferences and rationales continue, category by category, after the cut.

Best Picture
For the longest time, I was too scared to believe that my favorite U.S. release of 2009 could actually pull this off – as the critics fell uniformly in line behind Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq action drama, I thought it might merely be passing the baton in a relay race to “Avatar,” as “L.A. Confidential” did to James Cameron’s last film, 12 years ago. (Yes, I predicted an “Inglourious Basterds” upset two months ago, but that was based on certain circumstances that didn’t come to pass.) But now, with almost every industry guild joining the “Hurt Locker” chorus, and a surge of negative publicity that strikes me as both too petty and too late, why would I disagree? And why would I want to?

Will win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: “Where the Wild Things Are”

Best Director
If Kathryn Bigelow were winning this because she’s a woman – as some snide pundits have suggested – Sofia Coppola and Jane Campion would be scratching their heads and wondering why their gender wasn’t sufficiently evident to voters. Yes, the prospect of making history might make checking off her name more appealing to voters, but what put Bigelow in pole position to begin with was the winning combination of a long-admired, never-awarded director finally connecting with the right heavyweight material, and doing career-best work in the process. No contest, and nor should it be.

Will win: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Should win: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: Spike Jonze, “Where the Wild Things Are”

Best Actor
Raise your hand if you don’t like Jeff Bridges. Anyone? Didn’t think so. I said it back in July, long before I had seen “Crazy Heart”: on paper, the role of an alcoholic country singer reclaiming his life looked like a can’t-miss Oscar grab. Now that the performance has turned out to be pretty damn good too, the opportunity is too neat for Oscar voters to pass up. Colin Firth and Jeremy Renner arguably gave more layered turns in richer films, but it’s hard to see anyone begrudging The Dude his long-deferred moment.

Will win: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Should win: Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: John Malkovich, “Disgrace”

Best Actress
I’ve become something of a broken record on this point, but here it is: I firmly believe that Sandra Bullock won her first Best Actress Oscar the second Anne Hathaway (somewhat wryly, I like to think) named “The Blind Side” in the Best Picture category on February 2. When a film enters the top category solely on the coattails of its lead performance, that performance is almost always rewarded. Unlike most of the internet, I’m fine with that: for my money, only the delightful Carey Mulligan is more deserving in this feeble lineup, but it’s hard to see the Academy exporting this prize for a fourth consecutive year. Her day will come.

Will win: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Should win: Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
Should be here: Tilda Swinton, “Julia”

Best Supporting Actor
Hey, ever stopped to wonder why Christoph Waltz has won pretty much every precursor going, save for the puny National Board of Review award? Of course you haven’t: sometimes, someone just keeps winning because they’re that good. Yeah, it helps that he’s surrounded by one of the most wretched nominee fields in memory (you’re excused, Mr. Harrelson), but Waltz could take this for his line reading of “attendez la crème” alone.

Will win: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Should win: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Should be here: Jemaine Clement, “Gentlemen Broncos”

Best Supporting Actress
Hey, ever stopped to wonder why Mo’Nique has won pretty much every precursor going, save for the puny National Board of Review award? You see where I’m going with this, right? If anything, the discomfiting comedy of the scene where Mary Jones sweetens her act for a visiting social worker should seal the win even more than that justly celebrated closing monologue: evil must be diverse to be compelling.

Will win: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Should win: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Should be here: Rosamund Pike, “An Education”

Best Original Screenplay
For the first time in this rundown, I must sincerely pause to scratch my head for a moment. For many pundits, “Inglourious Basterds” takes this because its writing is so very conspicuous in those florid streams of dialogue – even if the film is thematically vague and structurally crippled. That may well be the case, but the Academy often bypasses more “writerly” scripts for ones with a stronger emotional hook, particularly if it’s from a film well-positioned in the race: see “Milk” and “The Pianist.” On that basis, I expect Mark Boal to take his first of two statuettes here.

Will win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should win: “A Serious Man”
Should be here: “35 Shots of Rum”

Best Adapted Screenplay
A consolatory win here should seal “Up in the Air”’s position as this year’s “Sideways.” Both are well-regarded, melancholy adult comedies that entered the season as potential frontrunners and left as also-rans, too lightweight to sustain the hype but still admired for their nimble construction. In a fairly unexciting category, the Academy can afford to throw this particular bone, though they’ll be missing the nominee with the most distinctive voice and – in “difficult, difficult, lemon difficult” – the most hard-earned punchline of the year.

Will win: “Up in the Air”
Should win: “In the Loop”
Should be here: “Where the Wild Things Are”

Best Foreign Language Film
Like Kris, I’m of the mind that “A Prophet” is the finest film nominated in any category this year. Alas, I fear that more squeamish, sentimentally-inclined voters won’t feel the same way. Since “A Prophet” and “The White Ribbon” were essentially declared the joint frontrunners for this award back in Cannes, I’ve predicted that something gentler, something cuddlier, would come up the middle in one of those unsurprising “upsets” to which this category is so vulnerable. I stand by that, but I’d love to be wrong.

Will win: “The Secret in Their Eyes”
Should win: “A Prophet”
Should be here: “Mother”

Best Animated Feature
Only the remote possibility that restless or envious voters will resist a Pixar hat-trick in this category prevents me from calling “Up” a mortal lock in this category, but we all know it is – and we’d know that even if we didn’t have a token Best Picture nomination to back up that assertion. From my perspective, it’ll be a disappointingly safe outcome for possibly the richest race in this category’s nine-year history – but since they managed not even to nominate the year’s best animated film, I’m not that bothered.

Will win: “Up”
Should win: “Coraline”
Should be here: “Mary and Max”

Best Documentary Feature
I’m handicapped in this race, having only seen three of the nominees – but I think I know where this one is going all the same. The requirement that voters see all the nominees beforehand can sometimes cause upsets in favor of more directly emotive works; this year, however, the most directly emotive (and high-profile) nominee is the favorite. Call it for “The Cove,” though there’s a riskier film here.

Will win: “The Cove”
Should win: “Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country” (of three seen)
Should be here: “Mugabe and the White African”

Best Art Direction
The outcome of this race could hinge on whether most Academy members deem production design to be a physical or conceptual process; that said, the fact that “Avatar” is the heftiest, most nomination-laden contender here is likely to make the decision easier for them. More ornate work, however, is to be found elsewhere.

Will win: “Avatar”
Should win: “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”
Should be here: “Public Enemies”

Best Cinematography
This race is beginning to remind me a lot of the tight 2001 contest in this category, where four very diverse contenders (including a gritty war drama, a lush Bruno Delbonnel effort and a black-and-white ASC winner) were ultimately trumped by an arguably less artful but more epic contender with a truckload of tech nods. On that basis, I’m predicting voters won’t be bothered by (or even aware of) the digital debate, and “Avatar” will be this year’s “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

Will win: “Avatar”
Should win: “The White Ribbon”
Should be here: “Bright Star”

Best Costume Design
“Bright Star” essentially checks all the boxes voters should be looking for in this category: Janet Patterson’s period threads are intricate, occasionally ostentatious, character-serving and woven into the narrative via a fashion-designer protagonist. For that reason, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it (or “Coco Before Chanel”) spring a welcome upset here, but thanks to the great Sandy Powell’s publicity blitz, “The Young Victoria” will likely continue the streak of solitary wins in this category for overdressed monarchy dramas that nobody much likes.

Will win: “The Young Victoria”
Should win: “Bright Star”
Should be here: “The Brothers Bloom”

Best Film Editing
With hundreds of hours of footage from four cameras, not to mention a tricky vignette-based narrative structure, to work with, husband-and-wife team Chris Innis and Bob Murawski would deserve credit for making just a cohesive film of “The Hurt Locker,” much less the tense, taut, perspectivally limber thriller that it is. No Oscar winner in this category has missed at the ACE Awards since “Traffic” in 2000; I don’t expect that to change tomorrow.

Will win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: “Il Divo”

Best Makeup
In the weakest year for this category since that sorry 2002 showdown between “Frida” and, er, “The Time Machine,” “Star Trek” seems to owe its frontrunner status more to genre expectations than any particularly spectacular onscreen evidence. If there were more to “The Young Victoria” than whiskers and rouge, I’d be tempted to call the upset, but there isn’t. (Meanwhile, how many Academy members saw “Il Divo?”)

Will win: “Star Trek”
Should win: “Il Divo”
Should be here: “District 9”

Best Original Score
Of the five nominees here, I’d venture only “Up” has a theme that most viewers could identify out of context – and the fact that that theme is integral to one of the year’s most beloved film sequences should seal the deal for Michael Giacchino. A surprising snubee for “The Incredibles” and a worthy nominee for “Ratatouille,” his third go-round with Pixar should be the charm, though I think there’s more arresting work in the competition.

Will win: “Up”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: “A Single Man”

Best Original Song
Too right, this ain’t no place for the weary kind. So why dwell here? Suffice to say that after last year’s foray into wonky world beats, voters should be comfortable with the more homespun traditional songwriting of the frontrunner. And rightly so.

Will win: “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
Should win: “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
Should be here: “Hideaway” from “Where the Wild Things Are”

Best Sound Editing
I rather liked Kris’s alphabetical theory about a split in this race, so I’m tempted to say that and move on. But a glance through the records show that the Academy tends to favour the more robust technical behemoths, with a greater panoply of individual sound effects, in this race. If “Avatar” takes only one sound award (and it could well take both or neither), this is the one.

Will win: “Avatar”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: “Paranormal Activity”

Best Sound Mixing
It’s actually very rare for the Academy to split these awards between two films nominated in both categories (often one goes to a film unnominated in the other). But the Academy broke that pattern last year to accommodate the enthusiasm for Best Picture winner “Slumdog Millionaire.” On that basis, I predict “The Hurt Locker” – a highly sophisticated feat of sound design in any event – will follow suit.

Will win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should win: “The Hurt Locker”
Should be here: “Antichrist”

Best Visual Effects
Oh, come on.

Will win: “Avatar”
Should win: “Avatar”
Should be here: “Where the Wild Things Are”

Best Live Action Short
Having finally made the acquaintance of all five films nominated here, I must profess myself confounded by the thinness of this category: only one nominee hinted at an original storytelling voice, while the likely winner, a well-made but dourly portentous Chernobyl story, struck me as a triumph of intent over content. As for “Kavi,” a cruddily executed Walmart-brand “Slumdog” … what exactly is the selection process here?

Will win: “The Door”
Should win: “Instead of Abracadabra”
Should be here: “Love You More”

Best Animated Short
Another curiously lackluster field, so much so that it could well allow a somewhat below-par effort from Nick Park to pick up a fourth Oscar for Wallace and Gromit (and fifth overall), on goodwill alone. But here’s where I let my heart rule my head, and say that the visual wit and inventiveness of “Logorama” can’t go unacknowledged in a race this shallow.

Will win: “Logorama”
Should win: “Logorama”
Should be here: “The Cat Piano”

Best Documentary Short
I confess I haven’t seen all of these, so this prediction is partly based on the word of others, but I’m guessing that the retrenchment narrative of “The Last Truck” will strike voters as sufficiently timely and close-to-home to pull off the win.

Will win: “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”

That’s that, then. One last time, my final predictions:

Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal “The Hurt Locker”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”
Best Foreign Language Film: “The Secret in Their Eyes”
Best Animated Feature: “Up”
Best Documentary Feature: “The Cove”
Best Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, “Avatar”
Best Cinematography: Mauro Fiore, “Avatar”
Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell, “The Young Victoria”
Best Film Editing: Chris Innis and Bob Murawski, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Makeup: “Star Trek”
Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino, “Up”
Best Original Song: Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett, “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”
Best Sound Editing: “Avatar”
Best Sound Mixing: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Visual Effects: “Avatar”
Best Live Action Short: “The Door”
Best Animated Short: “Logorama”
Best Documentary Short: “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”