Thursday, December 2, 2010

Updated Oscar Predictions 12/2/2010


* = Predicted winner


Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech *
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone



Best Director
Danny Boyle - 127 Hours
Christopher Nolan - Inception
David Fincher - The Social Network *
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
Ethan and Joel Coen - True Grit




Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Colin Firth - The King's Speech *
James Franco - 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine



Best Actress
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Lesley Manville - Another Year
Natalie Portman - Black Swan *


Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale - The Fighter *

Matt Damon - True Grit
Jeremy Renner - The Town
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech


Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
Melissa Leo - The Fighter

Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit *
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole


Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
The Social Network *
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit



Best Original Screenplay 
Another Year
Black Swan

Blue Valentine
Inception *
The King's Speech 



Best Art Direction
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit *


Best Cinematography
127 Hours

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
Shutter Island
True Grit *


Best Costume Design

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech *
Shutter Island
True Grit


Best Editing
127 Hours
Inception *
The Social Network
True Grit
The Town


Best Makeup
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Shutter Island *


Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception *
The Social Network
True Grit



Best Original Song

Burlesque
127 Hours
Tangled
Toy Story 3
Waiting for Superman *


Best Sound Editing:
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception *
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy


Best Sound Mixing
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception *

True Grit
TRON: Legacy


Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception *
Iron Man 2
TRON: Legacy


Best Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3 *



As always, have at it in the comments section and feel free to share your own predictions as well!

11 comments:

Matt Bukaty said...

I respect your opinion, but Inception better fucking not win for best original score.

:D

Kevin K. said...

I'm not sure what could beat Zimmer at this point though. As I always say about oscar prognosticating, it's not about who we want to win, it's about who will win. Besides, you're in the minority on the Inception score. As I recall, the vast majority of critics cited it as a huge highlight of the film. Personally, I think it's his second best work ever (not counting collaborations like The Dark Knight or Gladiator) behind his masterpiece of scoring, The Thin Red Line. The fact that he composed the score without having seen a single bit of footage from the film is extraordinary to me. I could see Carter Burwell beating him in a long shot if his score for True Grit isn't ineligible, what I've heard from small previews of that score sound amazing.

Unknown said...

Yes Inception will win for score. As for your top categories, I have to agree on all of them. I'm glad you put Winter's Bone as a Best Pic nominee and Eisenberg as a Best Actor nominee. I really want him to get one.

Kevin K. said...

I've never not had them in my predictions. Their buzz will come back around. Winter's Bone is in a Hurt Locker situation. Low box office helped out by a recent home video release and critical darling. It's in. The Kids Are All Right is fading outside of Bening and Ruffalo, so Winter's Bone takes it's spot, and Black Swan is all but locked I think.

Matt Bukaty said...

I'm not saying it won't win, I'm just saying it shouldn't win. That score is a re-hash of every other Zimmer score lately...lame augmented melodies over some sort of complex rhythmic pattern. Big whoop. But I won't be surprised if it wins at all.

And critics don't have a clue what they're talking about when it comes to music. That's the sad, sorry truth of it. Anyone that's actually in the music field/profession thinks Hans Zimmer is a bit of a joke. That said, I don't hate everything he's done. His scores for The Da Vinci Code and The Ring are some of my favorite albums in my collection. Just stating my opinion.

As far as who SHOULD win, that one would have to go to John Powell. As much as I love Desplat and his score for HP7, Powell's 'Dragon' score is stunning from start to finish. Unfortunately, I doubt he'll get any recognition for it because the award will most likely go to either Zimmer or the Reznor/Ross effort. I haven't heard the True Grit score, but Burwell hasn't been a favorite in the awards circuit in recent years. But who knows...this is all speculation.

Ok sorry, didn't mean to type you a novel.

elizagolightly said...

Matt knows his SHIT! :)

Kevin K. said...

Guess we shall have to agree to disagree on Zimmer. The Thin Red Line, The Dark Knight, Gladiator, Sherlock Holmes, Pirates if the Caribbean, and Inception are some of my all time favorite scores. And any win for him, especially for a film and score as extraordinary as Inception, is a big thumbs up in my book. The guy hasn't won since The Lion King, I think he's way overdue for some new recognition.

Kevin K. said...

I will say that also the Academy is not a voting body made of critics. They are actors, directors, producers, writers, craftsmen and women. These are actually the peers of the people they are voting for, not some random group of critics. Therefore, the branch voting for nominations of Best Original Score are musicians. However, I will say that the ruling system for eligibility in the Best Original Score field has become increasingly asinine and overly complex, disqualifying scores for perplexing reasons. Examples being Jonny Greenwood deemed ineligible for his score for There Will Be Blood due to the fact that he used cues from previous work he had done. However, the amount of original material ruling system seems very broken, as Gustavo Santoallala was able to not only be nominated but win for Babel, which only featured around 20 minutes of new material, so it's very unclear whether or not the Music Branch of the Academy actually disqualified the score for There Will Be Blood for legitimate reasons or not. By that same token, they also disqualified Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for The Dark Knight because the cue sheet was submitted with more than one composer listed. For some reason the branch has seen fit to deem scores written by more than one musician ineligible, which, as you and I have discussed before, is silly, since scores are very rarely ever written by just one person, unless you're a John Williams or some sort of scoring God like him. All the more confusing, was how the branch then re-qualified the score for The Dark Knight, only to not even nominate it anyways. Things like that are just fishy to me. Obviously it was more of a case of the AMPAS simply not responding to the film the way their colleagues in the larger guilds did.

But again, I have to reiterate that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a organization made up of Guild Members, not critics. There is a difference.

Matt Bukaty said...

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you at all. In fact, the music board of the Academy is comprised of a bunch of current film composers, including Mr. Zimmer himself if I'm not mistaken. And like I said, I won't be surprised one little bit if he does win (I'm expecting a nomination at least). But you said up top that critics favored his Inception score so that's why I said "what do critics know?" :)

Don't get me started on Babel winning that year...that's one big perpetual eye twitch. Loved the movie...but that wasn't a score...the only good parts were the pre-existing Sakamoto pieces *rolls eyes* "Pan's Labyrinth" should've taken it that year IMO...or, really, any of the other nominees were better than that...

As for The Dark Knight not getting a nom...I dunno, I honestly haven't been impressed with any of those scores. But really, rather than it being because I hate Hans Zimmer (which isn't true), I think it's because of how Christopher Nolan views and wants music for his films. He thinks of it more as sound design...something that will enhance and play off the sound effects, rather than it being actually MUSIC... It's a personal preference, I know, so I can't blame Zimmer. But I guess I feel like I have a right to be more critical of these things lol but times they are a changin' so I guess I should try to be a little more open of less traditional film scores. It's just hard when I know they're being written by people with little-to-know actual music-writing skills.

Kevin K. said...

I think there's less and less orchestral symphonic scores and more small chamber music and/or electronic scores. As far as Nolan meshing his scores with sound design, I can see what you're saying there, but I think the end result is so seamless that it really captures the tone if his films perfectly. But from what I've seen you do tend towards a more traditionalist approach to scores but the movements are in the other direction. The same thing happened 30+ years ago before John Williams came along and made full orchestra scores popular again. Maybe the same thing will happen again soon, but as long as it's cheaper to use electronic/augmented sounds and music generated on a computer, studios will always choose that first.

Matt Bukaty said...

Oh I know, we talk about that all the time in my classes up here. My dream would be to write orchestral scores, but for most of the actual film projects I've done I haven't gotten to write such a score. The closest I can get is strings and piano haha I'm hoping composers like Giacchino are turning it back around. We'll see... I just hate that now, it seems that production skills are more important than musical skill. It pisses me off.

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