Will Win/Should Win: 2008 Oscar Predictions

By Eric Melin

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Usually the hype surrounding the Oscars is all about who’s going to win, but this year, with the ongoing writer’s strike reducing the Golden Globes to an embarrassing press conference starring the cheesemeister Billy Bush, the talk was all about whether the 80th Academy Awards would even happen at all. Now that we know they are (with host Jon Stewart), it’s time to turn our attention towards the fun part—picking the winners. Hopefully, these predictions will help your work Oscar pool, or maybe you’ll come to Louise’s Downtown on Sunday, Feb. 24 at 7pm and try to win cash at our big Scene-Stealers Oscar Party. Either way, the show is more fun if you pick winners and keep score, so here goes mine:

Best Animated Feature

Persepolis

Ratatouille

Surf’s Up

Critics love it, it made $620 million worldwide, and it is inevitable.

Will and should win: Ratatouille

Best Documentary Feature

No End in Sight

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience

Sicko

Taxi to the Dark Side

War/Dance

Believe it or not, the one doc that had nothing to do with war this year was from Michael Moore. Even though he’s out of fashion right now, and his film didn’t come close to Fahrenheit 9/11 box office, he asked some tough questions not only about the U.S. health care system, but who we are as a society if we deny coverage to our own citizens just when they need it the most. Watch out, though, Oscar voters have to be able to say they saw all five nominees before voting, and Alex Gibney’s torture policy examination Taxi to the Dark Side has the current zeitgeist and is gaining some speed.

Will and should win: Sicko

Original Screenplay

Juno

Lars and the Real Girl

Michael Clayton

Ratatouille

The Savages

This is a strong category that would seem to yield five possible candidates to win if it weren’t for the Juno juggernaut—a sleeper hit with no big stars about an unwanted teenage pregnancy. Screenwriter and former stripper Diablo Cody is the toast of Hollywood right now, and the only way she won’t win is if they are tired of hearing about her. Tamara Jenkins’ pitch-perfect, tragicomic The Savages was the most fully-realized of all these great scripts, but…

Will win: Juno

Should win: The Savages

Adapted Screenplay

Atonement

Away from Her

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

The Coen brothers already have an Oscar for writing Fargo, their best film to date. But they’ve just received the Writers Guild Award for their faithful, elegiac adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men,” making them clear front-runners. Paul Thomas Anderson earns his third screenplay nomination for using Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!” as no more than a springboard for his off-the-rails American epic There Will Be Blood. The other nominees are all solid, and special marks should go to Ronald Harwood’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for wrestling a point-of-view movie script from the decidedly uncinematic memoir of a man who was paralyzed, save for an eyelid.

Will win: No Country for Old Men

Should win: There Will Be Blood

Best Supporting Actress

Cater Blanchett - I’m Not There

Ruby Dee - American Gangster

Saoirse Ronan - Atonement

Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone

Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

This category is the most up for grabs this year. Blanchett has the Golden Globe, Ryan has the Critics Choice award, Dee has the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award (or, the career achievement award for her six minutes of screen time), and Swinton has a slew of critics’ groups awards. 13 year-old newcomer Ronan is out of the picture. I choose to believe that the Oscars will go with the most searing, layered, and naturalistic performance and not the biggest star, and give the statue to Ryan for Gone Baby Gone.

Will and should win: Amy Ryan

Best Supporting Actor

Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men

Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson’s War

Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild

Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

Hoffman was hilarious, Wilkinson was crazy, Holbrook was heartbreaking, and Affleck was nervous and strangely affecting, but only one person this year created a character that will go down in history as one of the most frightening villains of all time, and that is Javier Bardem. Holbrook’s film was too ambitious and too long, but he was the best thing about it. The 82 year-old actor is also the oldest nominee ever in this category, but it won’t be enough to trump Bardem, friend-o.

Will and should win: Javier Bardem

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Julie Christie - Away from Her

Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose

Laura Linney - The Savages

Ellen Page - Juno

Like the Supporting Actor category, this is a two-person race, with Page as a possible, if unlikely, spoiler. Cotillard is a virtual unknown in a severely flawed French film, but her performance as tragic singer Edith Piaf was completely transformative. Christie has the edge however, for playing a vivacious woman stricken with Alzheimer’s disease in a complicated and mature movie about the life’s concessions. Linney was equally impressive in The Savages, but her nomination itself was a surprise, so she has no real chance to win.

Will win: Julie Christie

Should win: Marion Cotillard

Best Actor

George Clooney - Michael Clayton

Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood

Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah

Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises

Pop Quiz: Who said all of the quotes below, which are quickly becoming classic movie catch phrases?

a. “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.”

b. “Well, that was one goddamn hell of a show.”

c. “There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.”

d. “Just give me the blood Eli, let me get out of here. Give me the blood, Lord, and let me get away!”

e. “I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”

Will and should win: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Director

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Julian Schnabel

Juno - Jason Reitman

Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy

No Country for Old Men - Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

Having already won the Directors Guild Award and virtually every critics’ group award, the Coens are a cinch to take this one home. And if they take home the other three awards that they directly are nominated for (and not just their movie), they will be only the second (and third) person to do so ever—behind only Walt Disney! Schnabel and Anderson showed a fierce amount of talent as well, though I’d have to go with Anderson if I must choose between them all, for his invigorating, provocative, uniquely funny and beautiful There Will Be Blood.

Will win: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Should win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Picture

Atonement

Juno

Michael Clayton

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

Here we go. Next to the Supporting Actress category, this is the other possible big surprise of the night. Having won the SAG award for Best Ensemble, the Producers Guild Award for Best Picture, and almost every critics’ group award, No Country for Old Men is perfectly poised to take home the little gold man. But wait—it is a grim arthouse movie disguised as a thriller and has an ending many people don’t get. These same things apply also to There Will Be Blood. Although both are critical favorites, that small audience could be divided so much between them that neither will have enough votes to win the big one. Michael Clayton will be too low key. Atonement will take its fair share of technical awards, so Oscar voters may think that is reward enough for the over-hyped English epic. That leaves the biggest-grossing movie on this list and the only one with a traditional happy ending—the $118 million little movie that could, Juno. Think it can’t happen? I hope it doesn’t, but I hear they give away Oscars like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those T-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.

Will win: Juno

Should win: There Will Be Blood

More movies at scene-stealers.com. More Melin at a stage near you.

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Posted by matt (Matt Armstrong) on February 20, 2008 at 1:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)

We could've just written ours down? Well dammit, why'd we record all that stuff last night?!?

Oh, and PS, no offense meant on the podcast Eric. We're just jealous, petty people.

Posted by Eric_Melin (Eric Melin) on February 20, 2008 at 3:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Where can I hear said jealous, petty people? Sounds fun. Lemme guess, lotion has sprouted 'wings'?

Posted by matt (Matt Armstrong) on February 20, 2008 at 4:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I t should be up soon. Keep an eye on Punditocracy, Hate the Player, and Corn on the Macabre. It's like the all-star game, only with losers.

Posted by lazz (anonymous) on February 21, 2008 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Excellent piece as always, Eric.
Might I ask a somewhat unrelated question?
Last night I watched THE PRESTIGE. It kinda knocked me out, and I'm struck by the notion that Christopher Nolan is putting together a body of work that establishes himself (to my tastes, anyway) as one of the most innovative, vigorous, audacious directors working today.
As I often do when I dig a pic like this, I went hunting for the screenplay online. And found it. And the site I was using wouldn't let me download it. I tried another movie; same thing. Went to another site. Same thing, on all the screenplays I clicked on. Tried a few others, and they wouldn't even open their front doors.
Is something happening that is shutting down the online screenplay sites? Was there something in the Writers Guild agreement that forces the studios to hunt down and disable the free online screenplays?
I hadn't heard anything, and did a brief online search for related news, but didn't see anything.
Have you heard anything?
Maybe it's just a coincidence, but this seemed to be the case with the numerous US-based sites I tried; one whose server is, I think, based in Russia still seems to work OK ...
THANKS

Posted by lazz (anonymous) on February 21, 2008 at 1:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)

As for the Oscar nominations ... I'm dismayed that INTO THE WILD didn't get more attention, especially for director and actor. And most especially for Eddie Vedder's original music. I know there was some sort of absurd ruling that eliminated Vedder from consideration, but his music for that movie is just spectacular ... anybody who is a Vedder fan, make sure to buy his INTO THE WILD CD ...

Will Win/Should Win: 2008 Oscar Predictions

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