In this Oscar morning roundup of news ‘n’ notes from around the web, we focus on one thing: who’s going to win those 24 Academy Awards, anyway?
Roger Ebert says he can’t remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars, and he may be right. Certainly, rounding up the predictions being made by pundits hither and yon, you encounter the same names over and over, with a mild split in the Best Picture category, a big split over Original Screenplay, but consensus everywhere else.
Still, most of the people I know are not as confident about these picks as you might imagine.
Before I detail the predictions, Sasha Stone has an instructive roundup of the art and craft of Oscar predicting at Awards Daily. She identifies five kinds of Oscar predictors: the over-confident ones, self-doubters, wishful thinkers, consensus adopters, and the “very rare” ones who are “keyed into the tastes of the Academy.” I am flattered to be included in this fifth group, although it remains to be seen if my membership card will be revoked once the envelopes are opened.
To start rounding up predictions, here are the frontrunners according to the 15 voters on Movie City News’ Gurus of Gold panel:
Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker” (very narrowly over Quentin Tarantino, "Inglourious Basterds")
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”
I wish I could do the same with the Envelope’s Buzzmeter poll, but it’s essentially unreadable, the numbers don’t add up, and it says I made two Number Two picks but no Number One.
Awards Daily has a chart of predictions here, though it needs some updating (I reluctantly switched from Meryl Streep to Sandra Bullock a few days ago).
The roundup, with links when I could find them:
Team “Avatar”:
Anthony Breznican, USA Today
Greg Ellwood, Awards Campaign
Michael Wilmington, MCN
David Poland, Movie City News
Sean Smith, Entertainment Weekly (Meryl Streep)
Tom Charity, CNN (Meryl Streep)
Team “Locker”:
Scott Bowles, USA Today
Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon
Kyle Buchanan, Movieline
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times
Scott Feinberg, And the Winner Is …
Pete Hammond, Notes on a Season
Eugene Hernandez, indeWIRE
Peter Howell, Toronto Sun
Dave Karger, Entertainment Weekly
Guy Lodge, In Contention
Mark Olsen
Claudia Puig, USA Today
Melena Ryzik, The Carpetbagger
Kris Tapley, In Contention
Sasha Stone, Awards Daily
Anne Thompson, Thompson on Hollywood
Susan Wloszcyna, USA Today
Nathaniel Rogers, Film Experience
Samantha Miller, People
Erik Childress, Cinematical
Alex Carlson, Film Misery
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
Team “Basterds”:
Tom O’Neil, Gold Derby.
Steve Mason, ESPN
Brinton, Awards Breach
And my final picks are here. I’m in the “Hurt Locker” camp.
