Oscar 2008 Predictions
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
I haven’t been following too closely the debates about who will or won’t be nominated for the 2008 Academy Awards, though a few front-runners — No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Ratatouille, Joel and Ethan Coen, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julie Christie, George Clooney, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page — have become rather obvious after U.S. critics, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the Screen Actors Guild began announcing their winners and/or nominees.
That said, I have also read here and there comments on how this film, that star, or that sound technician (joke) will fare in the voting.
The list below is incomplete and quite likely not all that accurate. The only reason I’m bothering with this is because the Alternative Film Guide has been getting numerous queries about potential Oscar 2008 contenders.
By the way, that’s not to say that I couldn’t care less about the Oscars. Not at all. In fact, as much as I disagree with many — most? — of the Academy’s choices, I find the Oscars fascinating — partly because of their place in movie culture and partly because I’m a list fanatic.
So, here they are:
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Best Film:
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Into the Wild
Michael Clayton
Atonement
Possibly: Juno, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, American Gangster, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Kite Runner
The foreign-language film category is the one that usually interests me the most. It’s also the most problematic to hazard a guess because the (few) people who vote in this category tend to be (quite) older — I’ve been to foreign-language film Academy screenings where the average age of the audience was 102.
They are also much more conservative than the already conservative Academy. Compounding matters, I wonder how many of them actually bother watching more than the required absolute minimum number of films.
Anyhow, strong possibilities are Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania), the much-ballyhooed Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, France), the highly popular and multiple Goya-nominee The Orphanage (above, Juan Antonio Bayona, Spain), and the David di Donatello-winning The Unknown (Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy).
Also, those Academy members have shown a penchant for films featuring cute little boys, e.g., Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, Kolya, The Thief, Children of Heaven, Central Station, Life Is Beautiful, The Chorus, As in Heaven. If the trend continues, M for Mother (Rasoul Mollagholipour, Iran) and The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Cao Hamburger, Brazil) have a good chance at landing a nomination.
Films with Jewish themes/characters and/or Nazis/World War II are even more popular — see Sophie Scholl – The Final Days, Paradise Now, Downfall, Zelary, Twin Sisters, Nowhere in Africa, Divided We Fall, etc. (The fact that Black Book failed to land a nomination last year was nearly as eyebrow-raising as the absence of Volver in the list of nominees.) This year, there’s Beaufort (Joseph Cedar, Israel), The Counterfeiters (Stefan Ruzowitzky, Austria), the aforementioned The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Katyn (Andrzej Wajda, Poland), and probably a few others I’m unaware of.
But most importantly, those Academy voters love sentiment and gooey situations, in addition to a spoonful — sometimes a whole bucket — of mediocrity. Therefore, many excellent submitted films go unnoticed, while many lesser ones end up with a nomination. Hopefully, this year it’ll be different. But don’t hold your breath.
See Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Shortlist
No End in Sight by Charles Ferguson
That’s a hard one as well, for it’s another special category. Michael Moore’s Sicko and Charles Ferguson’s No End in Sight will most likely get a nod.
Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild
Best Director:
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sean Penn, Into the Wild
Possibly: Jason Reitman, Juno, Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton, Ridley Scott, American Gangster, Joe Wright, Atonement; Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
2 Comments
Tags: 2008 Oscar, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, A Mighty Heart, Academy Awards, American Gangster, Amy Adams, Amy Ryan, And the Winner Is, Andrzej Wajda, Angelina Jolie, As in Heaven, Atonement, Awards Daily, Away from Her, Beaufort, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Beowulf, Black Book, Brad Bird, Cao Hamburger, Casey Affleck, Cate Blanchett, Catherine Keener, Central Station, Charles Ferguson, Charlie Wilson's War, Children of Heaven, Christopher Hampton, Cinema Paradiso, Cristian Mungiu, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dariusz Wolski, David Benioff, Denzel Washington, Diablo Cody, Divided We Fall, Downfall, Eastern Promises, El Orfanato, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Ellen Page, Emile Hirsch, Enchanted, Everything Oscar, Film Awards, Frank Langella, George Clooney, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gone Baby Gone, Hal Holbrook, Helena Bonham Carter, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, I'm Not There, In the Valley of Elah, Into the Wild, James McAvoy, Janusz Kaminski, Jason Reitman, Javier Bardem, Joe Wright, Joel and Ethan Coen, Johnny Depp, Joseph Cedar, Juan Antonio Bayona, Julian Schnabel, Julie Christie, Juno, Katyn, Keira Knightley, Kelly Masterson, Kolya, La Vie en Rose, Lars and the Real Girl, Laura Linney, Les Choristes, Life Is Beautiful, M for Mother, Marion Cotillard, Mathieu Amalric, Max von Sydow, Michael Cera, Michael Clayton, Michael Moore, No Country for Old Men, No End in Sight, Nowhere in Africa, Oscar Addict, Oscar Predictions, Paradise Now, Paul Dano, Paul Thomas Anderson, Persepolis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rasoul Mollagholipour, Ratatouille, Ridley Scott, Robert Elswit, Roger Deakins, Ronald Harwood, Ruby Dee, Ryan Gosling, Saoirse Ronan, Sarah Polley, Screen Actors Guild, Seamus McGarvey, Sean Penn, Sicko, Sidney Lumet, Sophie Scholl - The Final Days, Starting Out in the Evening, Stefan Ruzowitzky, Steven Zaillian, Sweeney Todd, Tamara Jenkins, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Chorus, The Counterfeiters, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Envelope, The Kite Runner, The Orphanage, The Savages, The Simpsons Movie, The Thief, The Unknown, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, There Will Be Blood, Tilda Swinton, Tim Burton, Tom Wilkinson, Tommy Lee Jones, Tony Gilroy, Twin Sisters, Vanessa Redgrave, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Paronnaud, Volver, Zelary
| Subscribe / Syndicate
Comments
2 Responses to “Oscar 2008 Predictions”
Leave a Reply
NOTE:
All comments are moderated. Different views and opinions are welcome, but abusive/bigoted comments will be deleted and abusive remarks will be excised at the moderator's discretion.
Also, please be aware the Alternative Film Guide has no contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog and no information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
i second the motion. great choices (guess!
I couldn’t agree more for the large majority. Divided we Fall got snubbed. You drilled a lot of them and a bunch you predicted got snubbed, good list. (good interview with the writer of Divided We Fall here: http://www.indigestmag.com/kaur.htm)