Oscar Picks

For the record, at 7:07 PM EST, here are my personal choices for the top five categories and my predictions of the likely winners.

Supporting Actor - I would like to see Jackie Earl Haley win. His comeback story is great and the role, playing a child sexual predator, required some bravery. The likely winner, Eddie Murphy. In truth, I have not seen Dreamgirls, but I can't imagine that anything Eddie could do would surpass his competition.

Supporting Actress - It seems to be unavoidable that Jennifer Hudson will take home the trophy, but for me, Rinko Kikuchi in Babel was just brilliant and totally believable.

Leading Actor - I actually think that Leonardo DiCaprio should have been nominated for The Departed, not Blood Diamond, but he was great in both. The Academy will probably give it to Forest Whitaker. He seems to be on a run.

Leading Actress - My choice and my predicted winner is Helen Mirren. She made this mysterious, secret person come truly alive.

Best Picture - The most enjoyable and satisfying film of the year was The Departed. Unfortunately, it will suffer in the voting because so many Academy members see all the films on DVD at home. This was the only movie I've have seen in years with so much applause and cheering by an audience. It was totally involving for all, and this was is a largely white neighborhood where silence during movies is the norm.

One last prediction: An Inconvenient Truth will absolutely take home the Oscar for Documentary Feature. It is a unavoidable opportunity for the Hollywood community to symbolically vote one more time for Al Gore and to teach the unwashed millions another lesson about the truth of world and national affairs and global science. Then they can all pile into their 8 miles to the gallon limos to be driven to their private jets so they can go back to work at their movie locations or the equally important ski jaunt at Sun Valley.

How Do Past Oscar Winners Stand Up?

If you have ever been certain that the best film of a given year was not selected by the Oscar voters, here is your chance to see that judgment quantified. The folks at Rotten Tomatoes have applied their numerical rating scheme to the 79 films that have won the Best Picture Academy Award over the years. The resultant ranking can be accessed, sadly, only one film at a time.

Suffice it to say that the list includes such dreck as Cimarron and The Greatest Show On Earth at the bottom of the list. To save you some time and to make the point I want to convey, the top ten ranked Oscar winners are:
10. Casablanca
9. The Godfather, Part II
8. Lawrence of Arabia
7. The Best Years of Our Lives
6. Marty
5. Rebecca
4. Sunrise (1927 silent film directed by F.W Murnau)
3. All About Eve
2. On the Waterfront
1. The Godfather

All very fine films, with the possible exception of Sunrise, which I have never seen. What the list highlights is the frequency with which the Academy misses the better films released in a given year. Stories that tug at the heart or are uplifting seem to be favored. (The Godfather films being the exceptions that prove the rule.) Nowhere on the list are such gems as The Maltese Falcon, Ragging Bull, Citizen Kane, and dozens of other great films.

So it may very well be the case again this Sunday night. If uplifting is what is sought, then Miss Sunshine will prevail. If The Academy wants to make a political point of some kind in this very political year, then Babel will win. But what about our view of these films years hence?

If The Queen is selected, will future audiences see it as too bound up in issues of our time, with no broader human lessons to tell? If it is Little Miss Sunshine, will that film come to be seen as essentially a small, quirky, overrated movie, admired only for its very smallness in the face of the vast Hollywood studio machines? Would Letters From Iwo Jima come to be seen as a minor film that rose to prominence only when accompanied by its sister production, Flags of Our Fathers? The Departed, just another crime drama? Babel as episodic, with a long disconnected jaunt into the Mexican desert?

The point is that is possible to imagine such views of five films currently all considered important to the art form, and impossible to know for sure how our view of these films will evolve. My own pick for the most complete and satisfying film of the lot is The Departed, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over the outcome of Sunday's display of wretched excess. Neither should you.

The Academy Awards

For the record, now that I have seen all the films nominated for Best Picture, my pick would be The Departed. It is the complete package, acting, writing, photography, editing, all orchestrated by Scorsese to achieve a totally engaging, emotionally satisfying experience. It is the only film I've seen this year that had the audience audibly reacting throughout and applauding at the payoff in the final scene.

It is clearly also Scorsese's year for Best Director. If not now, when?

As for the other nominated films, they are all truly first class efforts. It has been a really solid year for movies. If you have not had a chance to see any of them, they are now beginning to be released on DVD.