The Jay’s Official Oscar Predictions, 2007

Best Picture

- BABEL
- THE DEPARTED
- LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
- LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
- THE QUEEN

Will Win: The Departed - It’s the only film everyone can agree on. Well, at the very least, it’s the only one most people have even seen. This is the weakest crop of Oscar nominees, in terms of box office, in decades. In cases like this, I say go with the movie that has the biggest stars in it. You don’t get any bigger than Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon and Scorsese.

Should Win: The Queen - Little Miss Sunshine is a cute indie flick, but is in NO way an Oscar movie. Especially not a Best Picture. Please, we learned our lesson with American Beauty. Once burned, twice learned (that Kevin Spacey makes bad movies). Letters From Iwo Jima is a pedigree pick, only here because of the man who directed. Know how I know that? Only twenty people have even seen the damn thing. Babel is a muddled mess of an ensemble film that wasn’t even powerful enough to get Brad Pitt a gimme Best Supporting nomination. Don’t be fooled by pundits who say this could be like Crash. Even Brad is hoping The Departed wins. As for that film, been there done that. With the same director I might add. He should have won for Goodfellas; it’s not The Queen’s fault that people liked Kevin Costner in 1990. The Queen, however, was the best film I saw all year. The most emotional film I saw all year. I learned about things I was unaware of, saw a world I’m not accustomed to seeing, it showcased the best acting performance of the year in Helen Mirren’s titular monarch (more on this later), and it managed to be captivating despite being a story EVERYONE knows. I would be proud to call The Queen the Best Picture of the year.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

- Leonardo DiCaprio, BLOOD DIAMOND
- Ryan Gosling, HALF NELSON
- Peter O’Toole, VENUS
- Will Smith, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
- Forest Whitaker, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

Will Win: Forest Whitaker - The Academy tends to toe the line for the Best Actor race, and Forest has the most amount of shiny plaques. Though don’t be surprised if the Academy decides to follow the Be Old rule and give a goodbye award to Peter O’Toole. He was nominated on name recognition, so who’s to say what people actually seeing the movie could do for his chances.

Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, but for The Departed. I don’t know who’s brilliant idea it was to play both Leo films down the middle. He was never going to win for a movie he has to do an accent for. No one gets Oscars for accents, they get them for performances. Leo may be brilliant in Blood Diamond, but I bet the only thing people paid attention to was how well he did the South African accent. But he was brilliant in The Departed, without the help of an Oscar bait accent. The Departed was the first time I truly looked at Leo as a man, not a boy. He not only held his own in the scenes with Jack, I thought he was better. Go back and watch the scenes with Vera Farmiga to see the emotion, intensity and desperation in his eyes and words. If that’s not Best Acting, I don’t know what is. Just a monumental blunder by whoever decided to go with Blood Diamond.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

- Penelope Cruz, VOLVER
- Judi Dench, NOTES ON A SCANDAL
- Helen Mirren, THE QUEEN
- Meryl Streep, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
- Kate Winslet, LITTLE CHILDREN

Will Win: Helen Mirren - She gave the undisputed best performance of the year. End of discussion.

Should Win: Helen Mirren - Everyone else is playing for second place.

Best Director

- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, BABEL
- Martin Scorsese, THE DEPARTED
- Clint Eastwood, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
- Stephen Frears, THE QUEEN
- Paul Greengrass, UNITED 93

Will Win: Martin Scorsese - The Departed is his Scent of a Woman, so to speak. It’s not his best work, but we screwed up by not honoring him for those movies, so this is the consolation. The Departed was his most accessible film in years, his highest grossing, and was a welcome return to the mobster-genre he defined over the last few decades. And it’s also what might be the last chance to give him an Oscar. It’s a weak year, with even Clint not bringing his best work to the table. In any other year Marty wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s his time. And if he loses to Eastwood again I will never watch the Oscars again. It’ll be a joke. Martin Scorsese is not Susuan Lucci. He’s Martin fucking Scorsese. Somebody better show him some goddamn respect.

Should Win: Martin Scorsese - Do I even need to explain why?

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

- Alan Arkin, LITLLE MISS SUNSHINE
- Jackie Earl Haley, LITTLE CHILDREN
- Djimon Hounsou, BLOOD DIAMOND
- Eddie Murphy, DREAMGIRLS
- Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED

Will Win: Alan Arkin - There is always one upset in every Academy Awards show, and I think this is it. Remember a few years back when Burt Reynolds was considered a shoo-in for Boogie Nights? There were all those articles going off on Burt’s redemption and return to excellence; he was the nostalgia pick to win for all the great movies he did at the beginning of his career (as opposed to the utter shit he had made recently). And even though “Burt Reynolds, Oscar Winner” sounded far-fetched, we all kind of thought it was, I don’t know, “right” in some way. But he ended up losing to a respected actor at the end of an illustrious career. That’s Eddie Murphy this year. He may be the nostalgia pick. We may all secretly want him to win. But really, Eddie Murphy winning an Academy Award? Please. People LOVED Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine.

Should Win: Eddie Murphy - All that being said, man alive would it rule to see Axel Foley win an Oscar. But it just won’t happen. Do not underestimate the Dreamgirls backlash.

Should Win, Part 2: Ben Affleck - Ditto everything I said about Eddie, but insert Affleck in. He was AWESOME in Hollywoodland. A few more roles like that and we’ll all collectively erase Gigli from the record books. I mean, even Sean Penn made Shanghai Surprise.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

- Adriana Barraza, BABEL
- Cate Blanchett, NOTES ON A SCANDAL
- Abigail Breslin, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
- Jennifer Hudson, DREAMGIRLS
- Rinko Kikuchi, BABEL

Will Win: Jennifer Hudson - I’m always leery of this category due to its history of unexpected winners. But this year I think the consensus pick will turn out to be the winner. Hudson was just too good. No one else even comes close. She was good enough to erase the American Idol label AND the rookie label. She just knocked it out of the park. She was so good I was actually offended Lakisha Jones sang “And I’m Telling You” on Idol this week. That’s J-Hud’s song, bitch! Back off!

Should Win: Jennifer Hudson - Everyone may be anti-Dreamgirls, but no one is anti-Jennifer Hudson. Suck on this, Beyonce!

Best Original Screenplay

- BABEL
- LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
- LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
- PAN’S LABRYINTH
- THE QUEEN

Will Win: Little Miss Sunshine - Fine, you all like the movie so much, give them this one. Sheesh. I haven’t heard or seen such rabid support over a mediocre movie since A Beautiful Mind stole the Oscar from Moulin Rouge. Seriously, take a minute and think back to the movie. Besides the acting, which has little to do with the writing, can you remember even one line of dialogue? Are you gonna quote this movie ever? This movie succeeded through casting. Just imagine Dakota Fanning dancing on that stage instead of Abigail Breslin. Would it be nearly as cute? Or would it now be creepy? Yeah, that’s what I thought. And stop encouraging Steve Carell to do movies. He belongs on TV, on The Office, forever.

Should Win: The Queen - How do you make a story that everyone lived through, so compelling and original? By examining the mystery behind the people involved. For all the media attention the Royal Family gets, I doubt many could actually say for sure they know who these people are. Peter Morgan got under the skin of the most overexposed family in the world and created a wholly unique portrayal of what it was really like to be in the middle of the biggest tragedy of the last 25 years other than 9/11. I never in a million years thought I’d care about a bunch of British people grieving over a woman I knew nothing about and had zero feelings for. But I was wrong. I was hooked less than ten minutes into the movie, and Diana doesn’t even die until the third reel. I can’t say enough good things about this script.

Best Adapted Screenplay

- BORAT
- CHILDREN OF MEN
- THE DEPARTED
- LITTLE CHILDREN
- NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Will Win: The Departed - Give Martin Scorsese his best chances in decades at a Best Directing Oscar and we give you this as a reward. I don’t think it’s a better script than Children of Men (and it’s sure not a better actual movie, COM blows The Departed out of the water), but it will win on pedigree. Little Children was too divisive. Notes on a Scandal has zero buzz. And as for Borat, well, I’m not sure the Academy is willing to reward Sacha Baron Cohen for a movie that never felt as if it were actually “written”. But more on this below…

Should Win: Borat - I’d like to say Children of Men, if only because it was my third favorite movie of the year, but I think Borat winning would be better for the Academy, better for the viewing audience, and also, better for the writing industry. Borat winning an Oscar would be a gauntlet thrown down at the feet of lazy writers. Try topping that type of creative genius with your shoddy, high-concept thriller. Borat winning would also be the welcome mat for a new style of filmmaking and be the type of precedent making win that might open the Academy up to edgier movies in the future. I could see movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and United 93 and Sin City finally competing for Oscars. Of course, the Academy should want to want all those things. But it doesn’t. So congrats to William Monahan on his win for The Departed. Yawn.

Host: Ellen Degeneres

I say she’s a 5′er. Some land, some clunk, most brush off like lint. Ellen’s never been a thunderously funny comic, the way Chris Rock or Conan O’Brien can be. She’s more like a “keeps-you-tittering” comic. She’ll keep the show moving, she won’t offend anyone, she’ll probably dance, and at no point will I think she’s worse than Whoopi Goldberg. So many people were disappointed with the choice of Ellen, but I’m not sure why. Who else are they gonna get to do it? The entire country knows and likes Ellen. Despite being a lesbian she’s more widely accepted than Chris Rock. And for the most part, considered “safer” than Letterman, Conan and Jon Stewart. The Academy is never going to be daring and put someone like Jim Carrey or Samuel L. Jackson as the host (the way Mtv likes to roll), so it doesn’t much matter anyway.

Of course the person I think should host the Oscars every year is Jay Leno. Everyone knows him, likes him, he can be dirty and edgy when he wants to be, and starting in 2009 he’ll have a lot of free time on his hands. The Oscars need a kowtowing MC and product promoter and that’s what Leno does best. Do I particularly find him funny? No, not at all. But I still think he’d a perfect fit for the show. Boring, but steady. Exactly what the Oscars are.

Look, by this time next week Ellen’s performance won’t really matter. Her jokes won’t matter, her outfit won’t matter, and neither will her blandness. All that will be remembered are the winners. As it should be.

As for the other awards, here are my predictions:

Best Foreign Film – Pan’s Labryinth

Best Animated Feature – Happy Feet

Best Cinematography – Pan’s Labryinth

Best Score – The Queen

Best Song – “Listen” – Dreamgirls

Best Documentary Feature – An Inconvenient Truth

Best Visual Effects – Superman Returns

Best Costume Design – The Devil Wears Prada

Best Makeup – Pan’s Labryinth

Best Film Editing – The Departed

And those are my predictions for the 2007 Academy Awards. Hope you all have a great Oscar Night.

Bangarang!

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