So everybody is saying THE ARTIST will win Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards this Sunday night.
I'm going with that too, but not to just go with the flow - it really feels like it's going to win.
Unfortunately I don't have that feeling with most of my other predictions, some of which I are personal preferences instead of calculated guesses (*cough* Michelle Williams). As always I'm really hoping there will be some surprises (*cough* Gary Oldman).
Here's my picks:
1. BEST PICTURE: THE ARTIST
2. BEST DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius (THE ARTIST)
3. BEST ACTOR: George Clooney (THE DESCENDANTS)
4. BEST ACTRESS: Michelle Williams (MY WEEK WITH MARILYN)
5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer (THE BEGINNERS)
6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer (THE HELP)
And the rest:
7. ART DIRECTION: HUGO (Dante Ferretti)
8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: THE TREE OF LIFE (Emmanuel Lubezki)
9. COSTUME DESIGN: THE ARTIST (Mark Bridges)
10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY
11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: THE TSUNAMI AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOM
12. FILM EDITING: HUGO (Thelma Schoonmaker)
13. MAKEUP: THE IRON LADY (Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland)
14. VISUAL EFFECTS: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett)
15. ORIGINAL SCORE: THE ARTIST (Ludovic Bource)
16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Man or Muppet” (Bret McKenzie) (THE MUPPETS)
17. ANIMATED SHORT: THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE
18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: RAJU
19. SOUND EDITING: WAR HORSE (Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom)
20. SOUND MIXING: HUGO (Tom Fleischman and John Midgley)
21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Woody Allen)
22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: THE DESCENDANTS (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash)
23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: RANGO
24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: A SEPARATION
We'll see how many I get wrong on Sunday night.
More later...