The Big Screen | Oscar predictions favor Artist, Help

 

With this year's Academy Awards just around the corner, here are two cinéphiles predictions. Be sure to tune in Sunday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. to see for yourself.

 

Actor in a Leading Role

George Clooney, The Descendants. Jean Dujardin is certainly a likely candidate as well, but I'm going with Clooney for this category. While not his best career performance, I think Clooney's portrayal of Matt King, a man struggling to reconcile his grief at his wife's coma and his anger at her infidelity, is the best of this year's nominees. The Academy will also likely award Clooney the Oscar this year to make up for not giving it to him back in 2010 for his role in Up in the Air, a recurring conciliatory trend in the actor and actresses categories.

Actress in a Leading Role

Viola Davis, The Help. MERYL MERYL MERYL MERYL MERYL MERYL. And with that out of the way, let's move on. To be clear, I would honestly love to see our alumna and trustee powerhouse steamroll the competition with her obviously Vassar-inspired majesty. But although The Iron Lady has front-runner buzz, the underdog Viola Davis will finally get a tip of the cap from the Academy; in my books, she deserved the nod in 2008 for her performance alongside Meryl in Doubt.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christopher Plummer, The Beginners. Plummer's won every single award-season accolade for this performance, so it seems like his Oscar fate is sealed. Is anyone else enjoying Plummer's comeback as much as I am? He's racked up an impressive resume in the last few years. Plummer's come a long way since Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Octavia Spencer, The Help. She's already tucked a Critic's Choice Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award under her belt for her performance. I like these odds.

Animated Feature Film

Rango. While I still can't believe the Academy snubbed Pixar, Rango will always be my top choice no matter what films are nominated. It's filled with enough visual film references to put a Martin Scorsese flick to shame, which made a fairly simple story incredibly rich and enjoyable. The way the film recorded its voice performers—acting out their characters together on a stage instead of individually in a sound studio—also deserves some recognition.

Foreign Language Film

A Separation. This category has a history of throwing Oscar viewers for a loop. Remember how Pan's Labyrinth locked down the award no problem in 2006? Oh wait, it lost to the (still unknown) dark horse The Lives of Others. So while all signs say that A Separation is a shoo-in, precedent says all bets are off. The Iranian film has absolutely dominated top-10 lists from critics nationwide—Roger Ebert chose it as his number one. But for those on the lookout for an upset, you're looking at the right category.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris. Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist is a strong contender too, but I'm pulling for Allen because this film was pure delight, partly for its bewitching, witty and imaginative screenplay. Allen seamlessly strings together multiple time periods to make a Parisian fairy tale so enchanting it practically had me looking up flight times to Charles de Gaulle.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The adaptation of John Le Carre's classic novel was not released to excessively positive acclaim, but there is one element that the critics are totally gangbusters for: the dialogue. The dialogue drips with intensity, most notably during a scene in which Gary Oldman's character recalls a memory of his time as a government cell in Cold War Soviet Russia. While I was equally impressed by Moneyball's capacity to dramatize a relatively cut-and-dry nonfictional narrative, this category will go to O'Connor and Straughan.

Directing

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist. Martin Scorsese finally got his due with The Departed in 2006, ending a decades-old legacy of being snubbed by the Academy. But the cinematic master may be capped at just one boon, methinks. Hazanavicius will take home the award this year.

Best Picture

The Artist. This seems like a pretty done deal. While not an exceedingly original story, The Artist features some beautiful filmmaking. And the Academy loves novelty, so the film's attempt to resurrect silent cinema works in its favor.