the blog of nathan loding

After much thought and point­less delay, here are my offi­cial Oscar pre­dic­tions. Posted a mere three days before big event, no less. These are, unfor­tu­a­nately, not the same pre­dic­tions I entered against Roger Ebert and his pre­dic­tions. With­out fur­ther ado, here they are.

Best Motion Pic­ture of the Year:
Pre­dic­tion: No Coun­try For Old Men.
Why? It’s the most per­fectly made movie. It’s the strongest con­tender. It’s the def­i­nite win­ner. As with another cat­e­gory a lit­tle fur­ther down the page, my heart is scream­ing for a dif­fer­ent film. I want Juno to win, oh do I want it to win. It’s my per­sonal Best Pic­ture, my favorite of the year, but when pre­dict­ing who will win, I must choose No Coun­try. This isn’t pick­ing who I want to win.

Best Ani­mated Fea­ture Film of the Year:
Pre­dic­tion: Rata­touille.
Why? I don’t think there’s a chance it will lose. The ani­ma­tion is phe­nomonal. The writ­ing is great. It’s a touch­ing film, which is sur­pris­ing to some con­sid­er­ing it’s about rats. I truly don’t think there’s a chance any­thing else will win. I could not be more con­fi­dent about this pre­dic­tion, and I’m more con­fi­dent about this cat­e­gory than any other. As a side note, the offi­cial list­ings has this cat­e­gory near the “bot­tom”, but I’m bump­ing it to top because I think it’s just as impor­tant as “Best Pic­ture”. I’m also mak­ing a sub­tle state­ment. Though it wouldn’t have won, it should have been up in the larger “Best Pic­ture” category.

Best Per­for­mance by an Actor in a Lead­ing Role:
Pre­dic­tion: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood).
Why? Does any­one doubt it? I want Clooney to win it, but I don’t think there’s any­one whose per­for­mance was even close to the cal­iber of Day-Lewis’s. The ironic part here is that it is one of his weak­est per­for­mances — it is so close to his nom­i­nated per­for­mance in Gangs of New York that it’s dis­ap­point­ing. The accent is even sim­i­lar. Still, it’s a bril­liantly con­structed char­ac­ter and per­for­mance and is the one to beat.

Best Per­for­mance by an Actress in a Lead­ing Role:
Pre­dic­tion: Julie Christie (Away From Her).
Why? Both for the qual­ity of her work in Away From Her, and as a recog­ni­tion of sorts for her career. My heart really is scream­ing “Ellen Page!” but I know her chances are slim. To spit the dia­logue of Juno out and make it sound effort­less and real is def­i­nitely not as easy as it looked.

Best Achieve­ment by an Actor in a Sup­port­ing Role:
Pre­dic­tion: Javier Bar­dem (No Coun­try For Old Men).
Why? I am a hor­ror and thriller fan, but no char­ac­ter I can think of is as creepy yet fright­en­ingly real­is­tic as Bardem’s Anton Chig­urh. My heart goes out to Tom Wilkin­son for his pow­er­ful per­for­mance, but I truly don’t think he’s the Academy’s pick.

Best Achieve­ment by an Actress in a Sup­port­ing Role:
Pre­dic­tion: Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There).
Why? I admit to not see­ing all the films for which these actresses are nom­i­nated, specif­i­cally Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone. I always want to root for the youngest of the bunch, espe­cially when they are truly young, but I think the honor for Saoirse Ronan is sim­ply being nom­i­nated. Blanchett’s per­for­mance as Bob Dylan is so amaz­ingly well done I can’t imag­ine this award going to any­one else.

Best Achieve­ment in Direct­ing:
Pre­dic­tion: The Coen Broth­ers (No Coun­try For Old Men).
Why? The direc­tion of No Coun­try was per­fect, impec­ca­ble, flaw­less, and count­less other syn­onyms for the same thing: mas­ter­ful. I think Julian Schn­abel and P.T. Ander­son are very strong can­di­dates here, but I think they are more than a few laps behind the Coens this time.

Best Writ­ing, Screen­play Writ­ten Directly for the Screen:
Pre­dic­tion: Juno.
Why? I love, love, love Rata­touille. It’s bril­liant writ­ing. But Juno is quick, smart, and, most impor­tantly, impec­ca­bly struc­tured. For­get the fact that Dia­blo Cody is now one of my few MySpace friends, I think she’s the one to beat.

Best Writ­ing, Screen­play Best on Mate­r­ial Pre­vi­ously Pro­duced or Pub­lished:
Pre­dic­tion: No Coun­try For Old Men.
Why? I have not read either novel, but Atone­ment is a strong con­tender here as well. Blood is only loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s “Oil!”. We may see a sur­prise vic­tory here by The Div­ing Bell and the But­ter­fly, which seemed impos­si­bly hard to adapt.

Well, the big ones are out of the way and I’m very con­fi­dent in my choices. There are few, and they are noted above, where I have some doubt, but I’m stick­ing to my guns with my picks. Now for the rest of the awards — those that aren’t as big, but just as impor­tant, in the film world.

Best Achieve­ment in Edit­ing:
Pre­dic­tion: No Coun­try For Old Men.
Why? The pac­ing is per­fect. Per­fect. The edit­ing is absolutely flaw­less. If there is a run­ner up, it could only be Blood, but I don’t think it even comes close the Coen Broth­ers masterpiece.

Best Achieve­ment in Art Direc­tion:
Pre­dic­tion: Atone­ment.
Why? There is a sig­nif­i­cant change I’m wrong, but I have to place my vote with Atone­ment. I think that There Will Be Blood and Sweeney Tood are incred­i­bly strong con­tenders, and I think it’s very likely that Blood will take it, mak­ing it my run­ner up.

Best Achieve­ment in Cos­tume Design:
Pre­dic­tion: Eliz­a­beth: The Golden Age.
Why? Why would it be any of the other nom­i­nees? Atone­ment may have set a new trend with Kiera Knightley’sbeau­ti­ful green dress in the movies piv­otal love scene, but what can stand up against sump­tu­ous Eliz­a­bethan gowns?

Best Achieve­ment in Makeup:
Pre­dic­tion: La Môme (La Vie En Rose).
Why? Up against a bad Eddie Mur­phy com­edy and Pirates? One is an Eddie Mur­phy com­edy, the other is sig­nif­i­cantly CG. I’ve heard noth­ing but incred­i­ble things about the makeup in La Vie En Rose, and though I’ve not seen it yet, it’s my offi­cial pick.

Best Achieve­ment in Music Writ­ten for Motion Pic­tures, Orig­i­nal Score:
Pre­dic­tion: Atone­ment.
Why? The music sim­ply drove this film for­ward. The score was amaz­ing in this film. Hands down, my pick.

Best Achieve­ment in Music Writ­ten for Motion Pic­tures, Orig­i­nal Song:
Pre­dic­tion: “Falling Slowly” from Once.
Why? I have not seen this film but have only heard good things. I have heard neg­a­tive things about the music in August Rush, how­ever. The other three nom­i­nees are all from Enchanted. I loved Enchanted, but I didn’t find any of the songs Oscar wor­thy. Math­e­mat­i­cal odds are def­i­nitely for the reimag­ined fairy tale, though.

Best Achieve­ment in Sound:
Pre­dic­tion: Rata­touille.
Why? No Coun­try For Old Men as the run­ner up. There is a sub­tle dif­fer­ence between “Sound” and “Sound Edit­ing”, but they are indeed two very dif­fer­ent things. It’s the dif­fer­ence between how sound was used and how it was placed into the film. I think that this ani­mated film takes the statue here.

Best Achieve­ment in Sound Edit­ing:
Pre­dic­tion: There Will Be Blood.
Why? As dark as this film was, it would have been noth­ing with­out the sound. My run­ner up is Rata­touille, but I think Blood is the clear vic­tor here, even over the bril­liantly edited mas­ter­piece No Coun­try For Old Men.

Best Achieve­ment in Visual Effects:
Pre­dic­tion: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Why? Though it was longer than it needed be, and not as enter­tain­ing as it’s two pre­ces­sors, the effects were seem­less and amaz­ing. Davey Jones alone was a visual feast. Trans­form­ers had extremely com­pli­cated effects, but they weren’t notice­able and obvi­ously CG. The bears in The Golden Com­pass were bril­liantly exe­cuted, but I think my over­all dis­ap­point­ment in that film is push­ing me away from it.

Best Short Film, Live Action; Best Short Film, Ani­mated; Best Doc­u­men­tary, Short Sub­ject; Best Doc­u­men­tary, Fea­tures; Best For­eign Lan­guage Film:
Pre­dic­tion: These are the only cat­e­gories I will not be make any pre­dic­tions in sim­ply because I have not seen a sin­gle nom­i­nee. In pre­vi­ous years, I was actively par­tic­i­pat­ing in the East Lans­ing Film Fes­ti­val and Film Soci­ety and was able to see most, if not all, of these. This year, how­ever, I’m at a loss.

This Sun­day, this will be one of thou­sands of sites with updated lists of win­ners as they are announced, only this site is only one of hun­dreds (as opposed to thou­sands) that will be com­par­ing the announced win­ner with the pre­dic­tions made here. I think I get an 85% right.