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THE OSCAR® PREVIEW

Hollywood’s big night is just around the corner.  The 81^st Annual Academy Awards will be televised Sunday, February 22^nd on ABC.  Now, I am going to try my best to predict the winners in the major categories for you.  Or, at the very least, I will explain who should win, though I fully recognize and admit that these people could care less what I think.  Yes, I am Ryan Seacrest and the Academy is Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.  They thumb their noses at me.  But, in the words of Tom Petty, I won’t back down!  In the words of Tina Fey, “Academy, suck it!” 

But first  . . . a disclaimer.  My print deadline for this edition of News 4U was the middle of January.  So, basically I wrote these predictions without officially knowing who was even nominated.  That said, I think I have a pretty good read on who’s in and who’s out as far as the nominations go.  And keep in mind the biggest disclaimer of all . . . the Academy has been known to get it completely wrong.  In 1985, for example, Whoopi Goldberg, who was a revelation in The Color Purple, lost the Best Actress race to Geraldine Page (The Trip to Bountiful).  Geraldine wasn’t better than Whoopi.  She actually won because she was old and had been nominated more than a half dozen times without winning.  But hilariously, in 1990, Whoopi won a Best Supporting Actress trophy for essentially playing herself in Ghost.  But was she really better than Annette Bening (The Grifters) or Mary McDonnell (Dances With Wolves)?  Hardly!  She won because she was robbed in 1985!  And, so it goes . . .

While I concede that the Academy Awards are a glamorous spectacle, they are still a spectacle.  The trophies given are often not the result of truly fine work but of fine politicking.  So, as I stand on my balcony in Argentina with my arms extended to my faithful followers (Evita, people, Evita), all I can say is, “Don’t cry for me!  Just heed my campaign speeches!”  They are written for your enjoyment below . . .     

BEST PICTURE

The Academy loves a good underdog story.  In the Seventies, audiences cheered Rocky to victory in the Best Picture category.  Nearly 20 years later, they shouted “Run, Forrest!  Run!” as Forrest Gump snagged top honors at the 67^th Annual Academy Awards.  Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire has everything going for it.  It essentially swept the Golden Globes.  It snagged a handful of top honors from critics groups across the country.  And it’s a soaring tale of the endurance and perseverance of the human spirit.  This tale of a slumdog who makes his way onto and aces the show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?  is genius filmmaking.  It should win and will win Best Picture.  That’s my final answer.  Okay, so I lied.  I have one more thing to say.  Danny Boyle, who handled the layers and shifting timeline in this story masterfully, should win Best Director too, though I did admire David Fincher’s storytelling in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Now, that’s my final answer!

BEST ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE

The Golden Globe Awards marked the resurrection of Mickey Rourke.  Who better to play a beaten-down, washed up wrestler making a comeback than a beaten-down, washed up actor making a comeback?  Remember, the Academy loves a good underdog story and Rourke’s is one legends are made of.  Because of the brewing sentiment, he may very well win Best Actor.  But, the best performance of the year comes to us courtesy of Sean Penn who, in Milk, completely transforms into Harvey Milk, the first openly gay male elected to public office in the United States.  His performance isn’t imitation.  It’s a complete embodiment.  Harvey Milk’s former compatriots have openly admitted crying when they saw Sean Penn as their fallen friend.  In those two hours, their friend and leader was still alive.  Now, that’s a resurrection. 

BEST ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE

This could be the most closely contested race of the night.  Kate Winslet’s sweep at the Golden Globes should have and may have made her the favorite.  She won a Supporting Actress trophy for her work in The Reader, then, a couple of hours later, picked up a Best Actress award for her leading role in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road.  Expect big challenges from Happy-Go-Lucky’s Sally Hawkins (Globe winner in the Best Actress Musical/Comedy category), Doubt’s Meryl Streep, and Rachel Getting Married’s Anne Hathaway.  This race is precisely why I don’t go to horse tracks.  I suck at picking winners!  So, the best I can do is to tell you how I would vote.  Meryl Streep is the best actress ever and she doesn’t need another trophy to prove it.  Sally Hawkins grated my damn nerves and I sat in theatre wishing her character would get plowed by a double-decker bus.  I would vote for Anne Hathaway, who nails all the nuances of the recovering addict who snags a weekend pass from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding.  That said, she, because of her misstep in the ghastly Bride Wars, probably won’t win and I’ll end up a dangling chad!  If you don’t think a single bad movie can derail an Oscarâ campaign, ask Eddie Murphy how he lost his Best Supporting Actor award for Dreamgirls.  One word.  Norbit. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE

This is a no-brainer.  Truth be told, the Academy had the chance to give Heath Ledger an Oscarâ when he was alive.  He was nominated for Best Actor for his gut-wrenching work in Brokeback Mountain, but he lost to Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote).  Ironically, he’ll likely battle Philip Seymour Hoffman again, but he won’t lose this time.  Ledger’s work as The Joker is the reason The Dark Knight is something more than an action movie about an irritating whinebag of a superhero.  Let’s face it, folks!  Batman is a drag.  But Ledger’s Joker gave the film is wicked, crooked smile.   Ledger’s work in The Dark Knight made the masses realize what we critics already knew.  Ledger is a full-throttle force of acting talent.  He will be sorely missed but will forever be cemented into cinematic history when he finally wins his Oscarâ posthumously.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE

This is the stumper . . . always hard to predict.  This category has given us jaw-dropping surprises over the years.  In 1995, Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) beat Kate Winslet (Sense and Sensibility) and Joan Allen (Nixon) for the trophy.  What the hell?  Oh, wait!  It gets worse!  Try this one on for size.  Four years earlier, Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives), Joan Plowright (Enchanted April), Vanessa Redgrave (Howards End) and Miranda Richardson (Damage) lost to Marisa Tomei for her work in My Cousin freakin’ Vinny!  It’s possible we just might see Tomei holding another trophy this year for her role in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.  Unlikely.  For my money, no supporting actress shined as brightly this year as Viola Davis.  In Doubt, she managed to do the unthinkable.  In just a handful of minutes on screen, Davis steals the film from the clutches of Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  As Mrs. Miller, the mother of a young boy who may or may not have been molested by a priest, Davis is heartbreaking.  I have doubts.