Predicting the Oscars: An Oscar Blogger Breaks It Down For You

“Think of Rocky winning in 1976 over All the President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver,” Oscar blogger Adam Lucyk says about the race for Best Picture. “Think of How Green Was My Valley winning over Citizen Kane in 1941. Think of Gigi winning over Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958. All examples of why I’m hoping The Social Network pulls it out, but still can’t quite predict it.”

Adam’s got an encyclopedic mind for the Academy Awards. And his picks in the past have to have been used to place bets in Vegas. The guy really knows his stuff.

“Usually the Academy votes with their hearts, not their brains. Will this year be the same?” Lucyk asked. He and I exchanged emails after he joined me on my cable and Internet show, The Film Fix. Lucyk’s knowledge of the awards is plain scary and, well, kind of intimidating. On television, it was a rapid fire of facts that was as interesting as it was impressive.

“The King’s Speech has the widespread love and respect, and The Social Network has the brains,” he continued in a long paragraph. “And this race is sooooooo close. Both films have major pre-Award wins, major guild wins, and major buzz. It’ll be a squeaker win either way.”

Adam’s “so” included all seven of those “o’s.” The Academy Awards brings it out in the guy. It’s the Super Bowl for film buffs. Like most award handicappers, Lucyk would put his money on The King’s Speech. But like a lot of film fans, his heart hopes that The Social Network would pull it out.

Not everyone, however, is rallying behind Speech or pulling for Social Network. My television co-host, Jeff Marker, is sweet on Black Swan.

“It’s visually sumptuous, a thrilling ride, an intellectual game, and injects unexpected homages to Polanski’s Repulsion, Altman’s The Company, Maya Deren’s A Study in Choreography for Camera, Man Ray’s Return to Reason, and René Clair’s Entr’Acte," Marker gushed when I emailed him about his Best Picture pick. You can tell that he teaches college film classes. But judging from the box office haul of Black Swan, you didn’t have to be an academic to like Darren Aronofsky’s arty horror film.

The King’s Speech will win. Pure and simple. But film geeks can dream, can’t they?

The Best Director race might be a little more unpredictable.

“I’m gonna have to go with David Fincher here.” Lucyk told me. “The man is well-known and well-loved. His films are amazing. And even though he amazingly lost the DGA prize, earlier this month he took home the BAFTA, even with King’s Speech winning for Best Picture.”

Jeff agrees. There could be a rare split between Best Picture and Best Director.

“[Social Network contains] numerous great performances and flawless storytelling that make what could have been a monotone legal movie supremely engaging,” Marker said of Fincher’s work.

I tend to agree, but while Fincher’s direction enters virtuoso territory, it was matched by Christopher Nolan’s job on the Best Picture nominated Inception. In a real Oscar snub, Nolan wasn’t even nominated for Best Director. Sure, he got a nomination for producing Inception, but once again has gotten no love from the Academy as a director. And that’s a crying shame.

Make mine Fincher for best director. And this is where the Academy will get it right this year.

Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor are all but decided.

The Best Actor is the easiest race to call in any category this year.

“Colin Firth has won everything so far, and Colin Firth will continue to do so on Sunday.” Adam predicted. “And he’ll win by a lot, like Helen Mirren in The Queen a lot.”

Adam, like a lot of film fans, was happy that Jesse Eisenberg was nominated.

“He’s been great in film after film ever since The Squid and the Whale in 2005.” Adam said. “If there could even remotely possibly be a spoiler (there isn’t), it’s co-host of the night James Franco."

And wouldn’t that be wild. Franco, who almost didn’t get the role in 127 HOURS, because director Danny Boyle thought he was high at their initial meeting, is hosting the awards show with Anne Hathaway. And even though Franco gave us two solid performances in 2010, the other by playing poet Alan Ginsberg in Howl, Firth better be fine-tuning his acceptance speech.

There were notable nomination snubs in the Best Actor category the year. Robert Duvall was ignored for Get Low, and Aaron Johnson gave us two terrific performances in Nowhere Boy and my guilty pleasure Kick-Ass, but no one seemed to care.

Another probable lock is for Christian Bale as Best Supporting Actor for playing washed up, drug addicted boxer Dicky Eklund in David O. Russell’s The Fighter.

“If the night turns into a landslide sweep for The King’s Speech, watch out for Rush.” Lucyk warns. “He did just win the BAFTA after all. But the amazing transformation, ability to find comedy in a tragic role, and pure energy of Christian Bale should carry him to a deserving win."

All that Terminator Salvation nonsense will be forgiven with Oscar gold for Bale. The censors will be keenly listening for an f-bomb when he takes the stage, I’m sure. Still, an upset is possible. Lucyk pointed out on my television show, that Geoffrey Rush’s performance is really a co-lead with Colin Firth. He’s got a lot of screen time in The King’s Speech. But Bale’s work is terribly impressive and deserving of the award.

The Best Actress race isn’t as clear-cut as most folks think.

“This race really comes down to Bening vs. Portman.” Lucyk observed. “Natalie has taken almost every major precursor award, and delivered the best performance of her already jeweled career.”

I was taken by Annette Bening’s work in The Kids Are All Right. It was a brave performance and one of two greats by Bening in 2010—many critics felt she was even better in Mother and Child. But Portman has the momentum.

“It’ll be a way for the Academy to reward Black Swan,” Lucyk explained, “since chances are bleak in the other categories, and if they go with Annette Bening, it’ll be for her career, not for this performance. Although…I’m sure they’ve never done that before…cough, cough, Sandra Bullock, cough, cough."

I was disappointed that the Academy forgot about Lesley Manville in Mike Leigh’s Another Year. But the Academy will likely earn some art house street cred by giving Portman the statue.

Perhaps the toughest race in the acting categories is Supporting Actress.

“Melissa Leo took most of the big precursors, but there has been some serious backlash to her campaign in the last few weeks.” Lucyk said, referring to Leo’s glam crusade for the award in the Hollywood trades.

“Jacki Weaver is deserving but it’s the smallest film of the nominees.” Lucky is talking about Weaver’s work in the Aussie crime epic Animal Kingdom, a film that made a bit of a splash at Sundance but saw little theatrical exposure.

“Amy Adams could get it simply because it’s her third nomination, and because her part in The Fighter is so unlike her previous roles.” Lucyk continued. “But it’s very very possible that Hailee Steinfeld could sneak in and steal a win here. If there is a category where a younger nominee wins, it’s here. And it could be a way to reward True Grit in a major category.”

I have to agree with Lucyk that the Supporting Actress award is a tough one to call. It’s even possible that Helena Bonham Carter could take it if The King’s Speech gets on a roll.

But despite her shameless self-promotion, I think that Leo, the early favorite, will take home the award. Few would argue that her unglamorous performance as the rough mother of two fighters was anything but spot on.

The Best Animated Feature category will be likely go to Toy Story 3, but Marker is hoping that doesn’t happen.

“Both of the other two nominees are very well done (I especially like the design in Dragon) but they offer nothing out of the ordinary. The Illusionist does,” Marker points out. When he panned Toy Story 3 on our show, he got hate mail. Folks were very ugly to him.

“While Toy Story 3 is definitely one of the great films of the year, it still wasn’t my favorite,” Lucyk agrees. “But with five nominations, including a Best Picture nod, the Academy will honor it, and along with it, the entire trilogy of films. Don’t forget, the first Toy Story back in 1995 was the single biggest thing to happen to animation since Snow White first stepped onto the screen. All other computer animation owes a debt to it.”

Perhaps the most surprising snub came in the Best Documentary category.

“When presumed co-frontrunner Waiting for Superman was left off the list, Inside Job took a big lead.” Lucyk points out. “However, Gift Shop has a lot of buzz, won a lot of critics awards, and is a very entertaining watch.”

Adam’s got that right, but is Exit Through the Gift Shop really a documentary or a grand trick of some sort? 2010 was the year of the fake documentary with I’m Still Here and even Catfish confusing us. For the record, I liked Catfish and didn’t care whether it was true or not. But Gift Shop is a mystery still and has emerged as a favorite for Best Documentary Feature.

Marker calls the film “a great cinematic sleight of hand the documentary more riveting than most of the Best Picture nominees.”

But there are competitors.

“Restrepo is a strong follow-up doc to last year’s Hurt Locker; and Wasteland has turned into an audience favorite.” Lucyk points out. “There really isn’t a weak film in the bunch."

My thought is that the documentary race is between Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job and Bansky’s Gift Shop and maybe the Academy will blissfully be fooled and vote for the graffiti artist’s edgy experiment.

We’ll all find out on Sunday when the winners are announced. And who knows, maybe 60 years from now, people will be pointing to 2011 as the year when things changed and the Academy started voting with the brains and not just their hearts.

Adam Lucyk blogs for the Oscar Beachhouse.

Jeff Marker is the co-host of the Atlanta based television show The Film Fix and is an Assistant Professor at Gainesville State College.

Jonathan W. Hickman is the Chief Public Defender of a small criminal court in Newnan, Georgia, and also co-hosts The Film Fix. When he’s not defending people accused of a criminal wrongdoing, his musings about movies can be found online at DailyFilmFix.com.