Predicting the Winners: 2010 Oscar Preview

     It's now time to put up or shut up and predict this year's Academy Award winners. Now if you are just looking for a quick handicap for your own Oscar ballot, at the bottom of this article I have provided my predictions for every category, but if your interested in a more detailed breakdown, I will give brief analysis for each of the major eight categories.

     If your an avid follower of Oscar blogs, about this time each year you begin to hear from the bloggers about how fatigued they are, and how this year has been so much nastier than the previous years in terms of level of discourse. I guess it is just human nature to always see a perpetually worsening (or sometimes improving) situation, even when it is really just staying the same. The key in any competitive situation that divides people into warring camps, such as the Oscar race, is to just ignore the extremists and exaggerators and just try to have a little fun with it. After all, the Academy Awards are ultimately a very trivial event that is far from a life and death situation. That being said, putting on my film enthusiast cap, I have been pretty disappointed with the turn of events in this awards season. As many of you know, I count myself as one of the leading members of "The Social Network" fanclub, so to see the early frontrunner fall from grace in favor of the mediocre "The King's Speech" has been a let down to say the least. Especially given the Academy's surprising good taste over the last few years, to see it slip back into its pattern of rewarding typical "Oscar bait" prestige fare is disheartening, but I guess that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.  


     To start off, I thought we would look at the two writing awards: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay. Typically, the Academy uses these writing awards for two purposes. The first is to add to the tally of the Best Picture winner, because it is a rare sight indeed for a Best Picture winner not to win one of the writing awards (the last Best Picture not to win the writing category it was nominated in was "Million Dollar Baby", which lost to "Sideways"). This year, that translates to an almost certain win for "The King's Speech" in the Best Original Screenplay category. If there is a surprise, my money would be on "The Kids Are All Right", as this is the one category where the Academy can show its love for the film, but I really don't see anything upsetting "The King's Speech". The second thing the Academy members use the writing awards for is to recognize one of the Best Picture nominee losers, acting as a sort of consolation prize. In some years, it is hard to discern the Academy's "second favorite", such as last year, when many were shocked that "Precious" beat "Up in the Air" for Best Adapted Screenplay. This year, that is not the case, as the "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network" narrative has been with for months, and if "The Social Network" ends up with only one award, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay will likely be it, so don't bet on anything other than "The Social Network" for Best Adapted Screenplay.

     Now on to the four acting awards. Let's start with most interesting and competitive race: Best Supporting Actress. Once upon a time, this race appeared to be wrapped up by Melissa Leo, and if it was just based on merit, it still would be. Unfortunately for Leo though, after a terribly mismanaged campaign, the race is now up for grabs. If you haven't heard, the big "scandal" is that Leo made her own FYC (For Your Consideration) ads, and this fact, or maybe the ads themselves (or a combination of both), apparently didn't pass many Academy members sniff test. The question then becomes, for the people who abandoned Leo for her off-screen antics, who will they throw their support behind. Given the apparent enthusiasm for the film, along with the fact that she has been a long-time industry player who has been nominated but never won, I would guess the natural choice for these "classy" voters would be Helena Bonham Carter for "The King's Speech". Some have argued the chances of the young Hailee Steinfeld for "True Grit", and it could be a way to award the film, while others yet have made the case that disaffected Leo voters would throw their weight behind her co-star instead, Amy Adams. Neither of these arguments make as much sense to me as the Helena Bonham Carter line of thinking, but the real question is how many Academy members really were put off by Leo making her own FYC adds. It's to say, but in my estimation, unfortunately, I think it will be enough to take the award away from her, so I'm going to go with Helena Bonham Carter for my prediction.

     The other acting categories are much simpler by comparison. In the Best Supporting Actor race, there are really only two viable options: Christian Bale for "The Fighter" or Geoffrey Rush for "The King's Speech". Now as much love as there is reported for "The King's Speech" inside the Academy, this is one award I expect it to lose. For one, Geoffrey Rush has already won an Oscar before, while Christian Bale has been one of the leading actors of the last decade but has not won an Oscar (or even nominated before this year). This is also the most reasonable place for the Academy to show its love for "The Fighter", and I think they will take the opportunity in this category to give a nice pat-on-the-back to everyone who worked on the film. There is also the fact that Bale's performance is just simply better than Rush's, but the Academy has shown in the past that merit doesn't necessarily mean much.

     Best Actress is a two man (woman) race as well. It is going to come down to either Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" or Annette Bening for "The Kids Are All Right". Now going into the awards, Natalie Portman was definitely the front-runner, and as of now, I would say she still is. People have tried to stir up the murmurs of a Bening upset, and given how long she has been admired, and how close she has come in the past to winning the award, it's an understandable line of reasoning. The thing is though, "Black Swan" is almost undoubtedly a more admired film than "The Kids Are All Right" (hence its Best Director nomination that "The Kids Are All Right" lacks), and while Bening has a lot of help from a large supporting cast, Portman holds up much of the movie on her own. For these reasons, I am expecting to hear, "Natalie Portman" called to the stage at the Best Actress presentation.

     The easiest category to predict this year is certainly Best Actor. It will be sort of patronizing for the rest of the nominees to hear their names read, because this award has been such a lock for Colin Firth from almost the beginning of the awards season, that I wouldn't be surprised to learn they engraved his name before they even announced the nominations. Personally, while Colin Firth did give a great performance, I don't think is was so far and away superior to the competition that his victory deserves to be such a cinch, but anyone predicting someone other than Colin Firth for Best Actor on their ballot does so at their own peril.

     Even though "The King's Speech" has become the front-runner in the second half of the 2010 movie awards marathon, there are many who still argue that a Best Picture/Best Director split is still possible. It does happen a lot (the last such occurrence was in 2005 when Ang Lee won Best Director for "Brokeback Mountian" while "Crash" won Best Picture), but when it does occur it is usually when intellectually the Academy members consider one film to better, but their heart says something else. In these cases, they give Best Director to the intellectual film, but Best Picture goes to the heartfelt film. And this dynamic does match the "The King's Speech"/"The Social Network" split to some extent, but as much as I would love David Fincher to win Best Director over Tom Hooper, this is why I don't think it will happen. I get the feeling that many Academy members began to resent the fact that they were so consistently being told they should like "The King's Speech" more than "The Social Network". Under this environment, to give David Fincher Best Director would feel like an admittance of guilt, which is something the prideful people in the film industry are not likely to do. For this reason, I reluctantly have to go with Tom Hooper as my prediction for Best Director, but this one time I would love to be wrong.

     Finally, the biggest award of the night, Best Picture is all but assured to go to "The King's Speech". There are a few who still argue that a "The Social Network" upset is still in the cards, but while I think it is still possible, if it actually pulls it off, I will be quite (pleasantly) surprised. As I commented in my "If I Picked the Winners: Best Picture 2010" article, I find it a said statement on our times that people have become so reactionary. That's not to say twenty years ago that "The King's Speech" wouldn't have beat "The Social Network", and frankly Hollywood has always lived in this sort of reactionary bubble going all the way back to "Citizen Kane" in 1941, but the building of the hype balloon, and its inevitable popping, has tainted too many viewers from having sincere reactions and criticisms to movies. So is life in the 21st Century I guess.

     Like I said in the opening of this article though, the Oscars should be about fun, and that's what I plan to do Sunday night. Even if the Academy makes yet another goof by giving "The King's Speech" its Best Picture award over "The Social Network".

2010 Academy Awards Winners Predictions

Best Short Film, Live Action: Na Wewe

Best Short Film, Animated: The Lost Thing

Best Documentary, Short Subjects: Strangers No More

Best Documentary, Features: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Best Visual Effects: Inception

Best Sound Editing: Inception

Best Sound Mixing: Inception

Best Original Song: "If I Rise" from "127 Hours"

Best Original Score: The Social Network

Best Makeup: The Wolfman

Best Costume Design: The King's Speech

Best Art Direction: The King's Speech

Best Editing: The King's Speech

Best Cinematography: True Grit

Best Foreign Film: In a Better World

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Best Writing, Original Screenplay: The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress: Helena Bonham Carter in "The King's Speech"

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale in "The Fighter"

Best Actress: Natalie Portman in "Black Swan"

Best Actor: Colin Firth in "The King's Speech"

Best Director: Tom Hooper for "The King's Speech"

Best Picture: The King's Speech