TrailerSpy’s Oscar Predictions

Whether you want to win your Oscar pool or just sound informed at a party on the big night, we’ve got you covered. Here are my Oscar picks, with lots of help from the experts at Oscar Watch.

Supporting Actress
Ok, I’m going to begin with a doozy that may start some arguments. If you want the safe bet, pick Jennifer Hudson, but I’m going to bet that she won’t win. There is no freakin’ way that Academy members, who are elitist overachievers, are going to give an Oscar to an actor in her first acting job. That doesn’t happen unless the actor is 12. The Academy is tired of Dreamgirls (remember, it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture) and frankly, Hudson’s been completely over-hyped. Anybody who saw Dreamgirls after mid-January walked away from her performance thinking, that’s it? I mean, the girl can sing, there’s no denying that. But the award is Best Supporting Actress. And let me tell you, every other nominee acted circles around Jennifer Hudson, even 10-year-old Abigail Breslin. However, Breslin won’t win. Both Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi were amazing in Babel, but they will split votes from Babel fans. All of which leaves Cate Blanchett to swoop in for her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar in three years. Her performance in the climactic scene of Notes on a Scandal was a work of art (as was Judi Dench’s, but it’s not her year). Furthermore, Blanchett has worked with a good percentage of the Academy, and the Academy votes for its own.
Safe Bet: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
My Pick: Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Supporting Actor
Eddie Murphy, unlike Jennifer Hudson, is actually an actor, or at least a comedian. I did walk away from Dreamgirls pleasantly surprised by how good he was in the role. Then again, this is also the man behind Norbit, and those Norbit ads were unmissable during the entire voting period. Of the other nominees, Alan Arkin has the most momentum. Jackie Earle Haley is the other upset candidate, but he is playing a pedophile in Little Children, which few people saw.
Safe Bet: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
My Pick: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Lead Actress
The Academy has already started engraving this award with Helen Mirren’s name on it. She simply was Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, and it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role.
Safe Bet: Helen Mirren, The Queen
My Pick: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Lead Actor
Reese Witherspoon has presented so many awards to Forest Whitaker this season that by now they are old friends. Oscar night will be no different. Ryan Gosling will get another shot, and sentiment isn’t enough to carry Peter O’Toole to the podium.
Safe Bet: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
My Pick: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Director
This is Martin Scorsese’s sixth Oscar nomination for Best Director, and eighth nomination overall, but every year he has gone home empty-handed. (He was nominated for Adapted Screenplay for Goodfellas and The Age of Innocence.) He was supposed to have won in 2005 for The Aviator, but Clint Eastwood stole his thunder with Million Dollar Baby. The Aviator was a good, but long, movie, and The Departed is brilliant. This is Marty’s year, plain and simple.
Safe Bet: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
My Pick: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Best Picture
This year’s Best Picture race is so close that Fox Searchlight has hired people to give cupcakes away in Los Angeles on behalf of Little Miss Sunshine. It has devolved into a high school popularity contest, but with much larger stakes.

If I were an Oscar voter, I would look at the Best Picture category as a question of legacy. Which film is going to leave the greater legacy? Which film has a greater legacy: Dances With Wolves, or Goodfellas? Goodfellas, of course, but Dances won.

Prognosticators and bookies have The Departed, Babel, and Little Miss Sunshine in a dead heat. Letters From Iwo Jima is a masterpiece, but hardly anybody saw it. Plus, Clint won for Best Picture twice already. The Queen is a really good television movie. Many people are predicting gold for Little Miss Sunshine, and as much as I would love for that to happen, comedies simply don’t win, especially not zany comedies about a family of losers.

The real contenders are Babel and The Departed. Not many people saw Babel, but those who did either loved Babel or they really hated it. There was a fair amount of frontal female nudity, which will turn off notoriously conservative Oscar voters. Numerous websites are saying that Babel is this year’s Crash, since they share similar themes. All those people who were heartbroken that Crash took the big prize over Brokeback Mountain last year are not going to be voting for Babel.

So I am going to go with The Departed. At two and a half hours long, I was expecting to be bored and antsy, but I barely blinked. The box office winner has a definite advantage in the Best Picture race, and the sentiment for Martin Scorsese will be a huge factor.
Safe Bet: Babel or The Departed
My Pick: The Departed

Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear it…

For analysis and picks on the rest of the categories, click here.

Previously: Which Best Picture nominee has the Best Trailer?