2007 Academy Award picks

As we are talking about predictions I will start with my biggest prediction. Even with Ellen DeGeneres hosting this will be one of the lowest rated Oscar broadcasts ever. Not that the Oscars haven’t been in a downward spiral anyway with the fragmentation of television markets, but this year many of the races are nearly forgone conclusions. Plus, to be honest, none of the films this year were that inspiring or noteworthy.

Now of course people will tune in to see if Martin Scorsese can finally win an Oscar, but that is really the only big name poignant moment shaping up for the evening. Certainly many of the films this year were enjoyable including Little Miss Sunshine and Dreamgirls. Action oriented films are pretty well represented not just in effects categories but, with Blood Diamond and The Departed, in almost ever other category as well. But this year’s awards season has generated more of a shoulder shrugging sigh as it progresses. Not to mention the fact that as Hollywood veers further and further into indie land most markets and most people haven’t even seen many of these films. One of the most pleasant trends this year is the racial diversity of the categories especially a strong showing of Hispanic actors and directors, though none of them are likely to win a thing.

So without too much further preaching on the state of the film industry, here are the nominees and my personal picks for the 2007 Academy Awards.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

There are no real surprises in the best actor category except perhaps that Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for Blood Diamond instead of for The Departed which was quite possibly the stronger of the two roles. I believe it was because Warner Brothers Pictures who released both pictures was angling for two nominations and proposed DiCaprio for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Departed. Whoops. Once again Forest Whitaker will likely win the award as dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Surprisingly four out of five of the nominations are for performances in films that have no other nominations, Blood Diamond being the only exception. In the actresses category the ratio is reversed with only one actress Penelope Cruz as the only nomination for Volver.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

It is nice to see that Djimon Hounsou who was overlooked in the Globes nominations is represented here with the Academy. Globe winner Eddie Murphy heads a widely varying group including Alan Arkin, Jackie Earle Haley, and Mark Wahlberg. Jack Nicholson is notably absent for his work in The Departed as is everyone else in the cast including Matt Damon and Martin Sheen. Also sadly absent is Ben Affleck and his affecting performance as the man-of-steel with feet of clay, George Reeves, in Hollywoodland. I’d really like to see Jackie Earle Haley win for his child molester in Little Children but as much as Hollywood likes a comeback story they may choose to go with the more popular comeback of Eddie Murphy.

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Perhaps this will be the year that a little gray creeps back into the leading actress category. It has been more than a decade since someone over 40 has won the best actress Oscar but it seems likely that this will be the year as Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, and Judi Dench lead the nominations. It still surprises me to see Streep in this category as her role in The Devil Wears Prada was more of a supporting role, but the requirements for each category are nebulous at best. At this point it seems like young ones Penelope Cruz and Kate Winslet don’t have a chance against the grandee dames of the silver screen. Helen Mirren has been the frontrunner all awards season for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the days following Princess Diana’s death in The Queen.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

This category more than any other shows the power of a good marketing campaign as 10 year old Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine scores a best supporting actress nomination. She is nominated alongside Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi from Babel, Cate Blanchett from Notes on a Scandal, and Golden Globe winner Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls. This one is easy, Jennifer Hudson will win in a walk though again, her role seemed more that of a co-lead than a supporting character. I’ve been saying this all awards season but I am surprised and saddened that Catherine O’Hara landed in the same position as her lamentable character Marilyn Hack; shut out on nomination day.

Best animated feature film of the year

At least the best animated feature film is the one major category in which most people have actually seen the films, and in which making an obscene amount at the box office is a good thing not a bad thing. This year the nominees are Cars, Happy Feet, and Monster House. I still think that Monster House is the best of the three and I am going to stick with them though all signs point to Pixar zooming off with another award for Cars.

Achievement in directing

This category looks odd because Paul Greengrass was nominated for United 93 the 9/11 film which received only one other nomination, for film editing. Now I always thought that those two categories should track together much more closely than they do since a large part of directing is the editing deciding what stays, what goes, and how everything goes together. Of course in looking at the nominees only Alfonso Cuaron is actually nominated for editing a film he directed, Children of Men, so maybe this does not hold true as it did at one point. But only three of the five films are nominated for both director and editing. At least four out of five are nominated for best picture with Clint Eastwood nominated for Letters From Iwo Jima, Stephen Frears nominated for The Queen, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu nominated for Babel, and Martin Scorsese nominated for The Departed. The two big questions are: Will voters actually vote against septuagenarian and Academy darling Clint Eastwood? And, are they willing to risk passing over Martin Scorsese yet again? I really believe that Scorsese will win this time around which is somewhat bittersweet since The Departed was a remake and has a weak third act and is not even close to one of Scorsese’s best films.

Best motion picture of the year

The Academy used to have a serious problem splitting up the best picture winner and the best director winner but they seem to have gotten over it of late. Aside from the slight to Dreamgirls which received the most nods yet was left out of the biggest category this category isn’t that surprising. There just weren’t that many really good films this year. The films that did get nominations were Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Queen. Note that indie films continue to dominate this category with only The Departed a traditional studio film. Though it hasn’t really made much money I expect that Babel will win the best picture award.

And now onto the technical categories otherwise known as the awards you don’t care about for the movie you may have actually seen.

Achievement in art direction

There are five very different films with very different flavors up for achievement in art direction. Dreamgirls is mainly about performance, The Good Shepherd about mystery, and Pan’s Labyrinth, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Prestige about fantasy and their intersection with reality, or not. As far as artistry goes the world created in Pan’s Labyrinth rivals that of the best fantasy ever made.

Achievement in cinematography

Cinematography is a touchy subject not only because so many people don’t understand it but because the definition of good cinematography is up in the air. Often good cinematography is that in which the audience doesn’t even notice that work has gone into the cinematography while at other times good cinematography pulls the audience out of the narrative of the film to notice what is seen through the camera’s eye. Except for The Black Dahlia all of the films are fantasies which says something about the scope fantasy allows the filmmaker. While The Illusionist and The Prestige were well done films the cinematography award will come down to the two most interesting Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth. In a horse race I will pick Pan’s Labyrinth because it is a more hip film to like at the moment.

Achievement in costume design

Designing costumes for queens and fashion plates seems to be the genre this year with The Queen, Marie Antoinette, Dreamgirls, The Devil Wears Prada, and Curse of the Golden Flower nominated. It is hard to see whether voters will take Marie Antoinette seriously but this doesn’t look like the year for even the hippest of period pieces. Recreating the Diana Ross experience of the 60s and 70s will most likely win Dreamgirls yet another statuette.

Achievement in film editing

Film editing is the once category in which United 93 has a good chance of winning because after all editing a plane going down, whether real or fictitious, translates well to the screen. Unless of course you are making Air Force One. Surprisingly most of the films nominated in film editing were not only successful films but also highly acclaimed films that have been nominated in numerous categories. (Babel being the exception here having made less than 10 million thus far.) The nominees for film editing are Babel, Blood Diamond, Children of Men, The Departed, and United 93. I thought that the film editing of Children of Men was impressive and that is my pick. (Of course I loved the cinematography as well but I picked Pan’s Labyrinth in that category.)

Achievement in makeup

Achievement in makeup is another category that always baffles me not the least because it is rarely ever filled. I would have included For Your Consideration simply for Catherine O’Hara’s freaky Frankenstein makeover. The nominees are: Apocalypto, which received only three nods total all in technical categories, Click, which received only this nomination, and the critically acclaimed and widely nominated Pan’s Labyrinth. Pan’s Labyrinth should win this award.

Achievement in sound editing

Flags of Our Fathers which was going to be Clint’s big award winning movie of 2006 earns just two nominations, one for sound editing and the other for sound mixing. Of course speeding out the release of Letters From Iwo Jima was probably the right thing to do since the nominee field was perilously thin last year. How sound mixing and sound editing differ to the uninitiated and how voters can chose between the two I have no idea. Generally war films do well in sound categories since they are obviously loud. Thus Flags of Our Fathers, Apocalypto, Letters From Iwo Jima and to a lesser extent Blood Diamond and Pirates of the Caribbean are all here because they involve lots of noisy fighting. This could be the category in which Flags or Apocalypto make their mark even though both were box office poison. I will go with Flags.

Achievement in sound mixing

This category looks much like the sound editing category except that it includes Dreamgirls instead of Letters From Iwo Jima. For some reason the musicals always get nominated in this category but not the other. Again the same rule as above applies meaning Apocalypto and Flags of Our Fathers have the best chances of winning. I will pick Flags again.

Achievement in visual effects

Visual effects is an interesting category because two out of the three films are not nominated for anything else. In fact, while nominees Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Superman Returns were two of the top grossing movies of 2006, nominee Poseidon with a budget of 160 million was considered one of the biggest flops of the year as it grossed only 60 million domestically. Both Pirates and Superman topped 200 million in North America with Pirates reaching over 400 million. Go with the money on this one, Pirates of the Caribbean wins for its impressive cast of deep sea miscreants most notably Davy Jones and his monster The Kraken.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

The nominees for original score are a diverse bunch including old hands Philip Glass for Notes on a Scandal, Gustavo Santaolalla nominated for Babel, and Thomas Newman for The Good German. The category also includes relative newcomers to the Oscar scene Javier Navarrete for Pan’s Labyrinth and Alexandre Desplat for The Queen. The first three have been nominated repeatedly: Thomas Newman for Lemony Snicket, Finding Nemo, and Road to Perdition, Gustavo Santaolalla for The Motorcycle Diaries and Brokeback Mountain, and Philip Glass for The Hours and Kundun. Only Gustavo Santaolalla has won before for last year’s Brokeback Mountain. Desplat won this year’s Golden Globe but he won it for the score for The Painted Veil which isn’t nominated here. That said Javier Navarrete could walk away a first time nominee and a first time winner.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

Now there are only a few things I can say about the Original song category. 1. Dreamgirls has three songs nominated, wasn’t most of it adapted from a stage play? Will the 3 writers only rule keep Beyonce off of the podium entirely? 2. Now at least the Academy has a reason to have the lovely and talented Beyonce perform all of the nominated songs ala 2005. 3. When was the last time a rousing song from a documentary got a nomination like

Related posts:

1. Academy Award Rehash 2007
2. Golden Globes 2007 - Film
3. Oscar Picks 2010
4. Academy Awards Wrapup 2005
5. Golden Globe Redux 2007