Oscar Predictions

Posted on February 11, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi      1 Comment

Update: A newspaper article on blogging in which I am quoted is up on NorthJersey.com. Here’s the link. Before I get in trouble with the blogoverse, let me take a moment to clarify this paragraph, since it will surely get someone’s back up, somewhere:

“Scalzi claims to be one of the world’s first bloggers. He says he started in that antediluvian epoch before the term “blog” existed – 1995. Back then, a blogger needed to know HTML, the Internet’s computer code, to create and maintain a blog.”

Now, I did start maintaining a personal site in 1995, to which I updated on a regular basis, and I did wrote a blog-esque column on it about technology: The Scalzi Report (I quit doing it after I got hired by AOL). And of course I started writing the Whatever in 1998, which is somewhat before most “blogs” got going.

I don’t recall saying anything along the lines of “I was one of the world’s first bloggers” — considering I prefer not to be called a blogger at all, it doesn’t sound like something I would say — but I do recall saying to the reporter that I’d been writing on my Web site for a long time, certainly long before most people who consider themselves bloggers, and I guess the reporter simply defined blogging as “writing regularly on your Web site,” which is as good a definition as any, I suppose. Anyway, before y’all slag me for me for the quote, there’s my comment on it.

Now then, on to the Oscar predictions.

This will be the eleventh year I make Oscar predictions — and remember, I was a full-time film critic and currently review DVDs, so I’m a professional! Don’t try this at home. Anyway, here’s how I expect it to go down on March 23rd. These are my educated guesses now; I’ll make a revise closer to the actual Oscar date. Typically in the past I get five out of six in the major categories (I tend to flub the supporting actor or actress category).

Best Picture — Nominees: Chicago; Gangs of New York; The Hours; Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Pianist

You can toss out the Two Towers because the film isn’t nominated in any other major category, including Best Director. Next to go is The Pianist, which is brilliant but depressing and it’s not my feeling the Academy wants to be depressing this year (the real world is too depressing right now). Next out, The Hours, which is awfully literary. This leaves Gangs of New York and Chicago. Gangs of New York has a reasonably good chance because it’s going to win the Oscar in another important category (to which I’ll get soon), but its your typical Scorsese thing to the extent that it is incredibly violent and has thugs as its main characters. This leaves Chicago, which has already done very well in the pre-Oscar awards, and which has the novelty of being a musical in an era where people like the idea of Hollywood doing musicals again (the revival of a long-dead genre is why, among other reasons, Unforgiven was Best Picture a decade ago).

Winner: Chicago

Best Director — Nominees: Rob Marshall, Chicago; Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York; Stephen Daldry, The Hours; Roman Polanski, The Pianist; Pedro Almodovar, Talk to Her

Out with Almodovar, who fills the ceremonial role of The One Director Whose Picture Is Not Nominated as Best Picture. None of these guys ever win — or at the very least, I can’t think of one that has. Out with Daldry, who simply doesn’t have the wattage to compete this particular year. Next out: Marshall; the Best Director and Best Picture award go together in most years, but this isn’t most years. It’s down to Polanski and Scorsese. Polanski has revivified his career with a film that lives up to his considerable talent, which is good, and he’s not won an Oscar and surely he deserves one, for Chinatown alone (and you can throw in Rosemary’s Baby as spare change). On the other hand, he did hump a 13-year-old girl and then skip the country to avoid time in the big house, and even in Hollywood, that’s a hard one to get over. And anyway, Scorsese deserves an Oscar more than any other director working today, and Hollywood is finally feeling guilty about not giving it to him for Raging Bull and Goodfellas (both slighted when the Academy, dominated by actors, give the Director award to first-time directors who also happened to be actors — Robert Redford and Kevin Costner). Call it the Scent of a Woman Oscar: The one you get for what you’ve should have gotten if for before.

Winner: Scorsese

Best Actor — Nominees: Adrien Brody, The Pianist; Nicholas Cage, Adaptation; Michael Caine, The Quiet American; Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York; Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt

Anyone know Adrien Brody? No? Out he goes. Nick Cage is likewise gone; he plays a screenwriter, for God’s sake, and we all know where they reside in the Hollywood pecking order. Daniel Day-Lewis is returning to acting after a few years making shoes, and everyone’s happy to see him back, but the Academy will be content giving Scorsese the directing award as a career achievement, so the actual Gangs film is an afterthought, and that’s bad for Day-Lewis. Michael Caine deserves a whole lot of credit for pushing Miramx to release the not-exactly-patriotic American in this particular moment in time, and this nomination is his reward for that. He may yet win if Academy members somehow equate giving him an Oscar with a political statement about the war, but it’s a stretch. So we have Nicholson as the last man standing, and though I wouldn’t put it past Caine to make a last-minute surge, I expect Jack will make the podium trip. I personally think that’s too bad — I like Nicholson, but I don’t think he needs a third Best Actor Oscar (and a fourth overall), but everyone loves Jack, and Oscars are about personality rather more than about merit as often as not.

Winner: Nicholson

Best Actress — Nominees: Salma Hayek, Frieda; Nicole Kidman, The Hours; Diane Lane, Unfaithful; Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven; Renee Zellweger, Chicago

Kudos to the Academy for nominating Diane Lane; Unfaithful was mostly dreck, but she was great, and if there’s any justice, Lane will be able to parlay this into a chance to actually make good films for a change. But no one’s going to give her the Oscar for an Adrien Lynne film and she probably knows it. Salma Hayek’s nomination likewise bumps her into the “I’m a serious actress” category but won’t translate into anything more. Renee Zellweger has the juggernaut of Chicago on her side, but despite a couple of previous nominations, the vibe is still that she can be made to wait a bit longer. Julianne Moore is in the same boat, plus she’s also being nominated for supporting actress, so that introduces an interesting dynamic. Nicole Kidman will get the award because she probably should have won it last year (Halle Barry’s win, while not undeserved, was as much about Hollywood politics as anything else), because everyone loves her now, and because she’s playing a major historical figure and wearing a false nose that makes her look far less cute than she usually is. Glamorous girls playing dowdy — that’s a road to Oscar gold.

Winner: Kidman

Supporting Actor — Nominees: Chris Cooper, Adaptation; Ed Harris, The Hours; Paul Newman, Road to Perdition; John C. Reilly, Chicago; Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

Good category, with no breakaway front-runner. Still, you can toss Paul Newman out right away; the words “Paul Newman” and “Best Supporting Actor” don’t fit together, and anyway, he’s already got a Best Actor and an Honorary Oscar. He’s done. Christopher Walken is likewise out; Catch Me is not a major contender this year. John C. Reilly and Chris Cooper are both in the same boat: Journeyman actors who are finally getting a bit of well-deserved recognition. It’s possible one or the other will pull through (Reilly more likely than Cooper due to Chicago’s current buzz), but I think it’s more likely they’ll cancel each other out. Ed Harris has been nominated three times before, has never won, and had the slight slight of having his Pollock co-star (Marsha Gay Harden) win an Oscar for what was essentially his personal labor of love. He’s owed by the Academy, and this is turning out to be a good year for people who are owed.

Winner: Harris

Supporting Actress — Nominees: Kathy Bates, About Schmidt; Julianne Moore, The Hours; Queen Latifah, Chicago; Meryl Streep, Adaptation; Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago

Meryl Streep: Gone. She’s got two Oscars and she gets nominated at this point basically to fill space. Queen Latifah — gone, though bully for her that she gets a nomination; I’m a Queen Latifah fan from way back. Kathy Bates’ nomination serves to remind casting directors that she’s still available for work, and you can do worse than having her around. Catherine Zeta-Jones comes in with a lot of buzz and is obviously well-connected, as she married into one of Hollywood’s best connected families. And she’s beautiful enough to make you feel like the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room. And she can sing and dance! Be that as it may, if a Chicago backlash happens (which it may), she’ll be its victim. It’s a close, close thing, but I think Julianne Moore will pull it out, because she has the body of work, she’s been nominated before, she has the right resume of quirky projects and game big-budget attempts, and since Academy voters will he handing the Best Actress award to Kidman, they’ll want to give Moore the consolation prize. This is the selection about which I have the least confidence, but I’ll go with Moore.

Winner: Moore.

Other random thoughts:

* If Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is nominated for Best Picture next year (which I entirely expect it will), I suspect that you’ll see Peter Jackson awarded a special Oscar for his efforts. This will be a salve for him not getting a Best Director Oscar, for despite the fact he richly deserves it, I expect the Academy’s more serious members can’t bring themselves to celebrate Hobbits and elves in that way. Interestingly, however, LoTR will not be the first trilogy to have all its films nominated for Best Picture; the Godfather films did it first (although, let’s be honest, Godfather III really didn’t deserve it).

* I think there’s a very good chance that Spirited Away will take the Animated Feature Film award. The rest of the field is weak — Treasure Planet was a flop, Spirit was pedestrian, Ice Age was fun but slight. I wouldn’t mind Lilo & Stitch getting the award, since I like it very much, but the creative distance between Spirited Away and all these other films is the distance between lower-order primates and Stephen Hawking. It should get the Oscar, in any event.

* Best Original Screenplay will go to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It deserves something for pulling in, what? $250 million? And it’s not otherwise nominated. And who wouldn’t want to give Nia Vardalos an Oscar for something? I suspect the Best Adapted Screenplay will go to — wait for it — Adaptation. Interestingly, the Academy is going along with the joke of crediting the screenplay to Charlie and Donald Kaufman (Donald Kaufman being Charlie’s imaginary brother in the film). One wonders a) if they’ll have two Oscars available on March 23rd, and b) if “Donald” will be extended membership in the Academy, as all nominees are as a courtesy.

* Bowling for Columbine will win Best Documentary, because it’s the only documentary most of the Academy is aware of, and because Mike Moore loathes George Bush and so does Hollywood.