one track mind

I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't written a single post since my predictions of the Oscar nominations and now here I am with my predictions of the winners. I promise that I think about other things! And some day I will post them up...

But on to the awards. Here are my predictions. This year is exciting only in the sense that Best Picture is a complete toss-up; I don't think anyone is really positive about their prediction in that category, which is very rare. However, there aren't many nominees that I'm really rooting for this year. I'll consider myself happy if "Children of Men" wins a much-deserved Cinematography award. In a just world, it would be winning Best Picture. And "Casino Royale" would have been nominated instead of "Little Miss Sunshine." Ah well.

One final comment: have you noticed how many of the likely acting winners are black? There hasn't been a lot of commentary about that, which I guess is a reflection of how frequently we've had black nominees (and winners) in the past few years. Which is great. Now we should all start raising a ruckus about there never being black nominees (let alone winners!) in any non-acting categories! Let's not wait until Spike Lee is 84 to recognize his unique contribution to American cinema, OK?

And now, my predictions....

BEST PICTURE - The Departed

BEST ACTRESS - Helen Mirren, The Queen

BEST ACTOR - Forrest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

BEST DIRECTOR - Martin Scorsese, The Departed

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Little Miss Sunshine

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - The Departed

BEST EDITING - Babel

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Children of Men

BEST ART DIRECTION - Pan's Labyrinth

BEST COSTUME DESIGN - Dreamgirls

BEST MUSICAL SCORE - The Queen

BEST ORIGINAL SONG - "Listen" from Dreamgirls

BEST SOUND EDITING - Letters from Iwo Jima

BEST SOUND MIXING - Dreamgirls

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man's Chest

BEST MAKEUP - Pan's Labyrinth

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - The Lives of Others

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - An Inconvenient Truth

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT - The Blood of Yingzhou District

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE - Cars

BEST ANIMATED SHORT SUBJECT - The Little Matchgirl

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT SUBJECT - West Bank Story

Now we just have to wait and see what happens. Will it all end with a "Crash" again this year?

P.S. S and I spent the morning on Saturday OD'ing on Oscar. We went to this promotional event in Times Square called "Meet the Oscars" where the public got to see actual Oscar statuettes (Clark Gable's for "It Happened One Night" and Bette Davis's for "Jezebel") and also got to get their pictures taken while holding an Oscar. I went a little bit gaga and encouraged (i.e. forced) S to reenact with me several Oscar acceptance speeches while we standing near giant Oscar statues. These are captured on videotape. I am lobbying for them to be shown to guests at the Park Slope Oscar party, but I may also be able to distribute them electronically, if you're interested. The speeches we reenacted were:

Louise Fletcher, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Barbara Stanwyck, Honorary Award (my favorite Oscar speech EVER!)
Juliette Binoche, "The English Pateint"
Sophia Loren, Honorary Award
Jessica Tandy, "Driving Miss Daisy" (this was the briefest and ballsiest, we filmed it while I was actually holding the statue)

Why did we choose only women? Why indeed.....