My Predictions For The 75th Annual Academy Awards
© Jason O'Brien
Ok, ok, I finally have to do it ... it's time to commit to making choices for who should win Academy Awards on Sunday. This Oscar Season has indeed been a crazy one, but it's all about to finally end on Sunday night, with the big celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Academy Awards. We only have a couple of sure things this year, but a lot of the major categories are clearly in doubt ... it should make for what will already be an exciting night.
So here they are ... Jason O'Brien's humble predictions as to who will win in the Oscar 75 race ... in every single Oscar category!
BEST PICTURE
2002 was such an incredible year for motion pictures, and five of them are represented here in this year's race for Best Picture. Since I always like to do process of elimination in making these predictions, let's take out the two that have no chance of winning this Oscar. I was frankly surprised to see the second Lord of the Rings film make this list ... I think it ended up kicking out one of the three films that probably should have gone here ... I'm thinking of Adaptation, About Schmidt, or especially Far From Heaven. But it did make it, but only with six total nominations this year, as opposed to the original's 13 nominations from last year. This year, it's clearly not a frontrunner at all, so count it out right away. Gangs of New York, while getting 10 nominations (the second most of any film this year), is pretty much dividing people right and left, and amazingly, with all these nominations, you don't hear many in the industry who really praise or love this film. It seems to have been nominated more because it was Scorsese, and it doesn't really have a chance against such competition. Roman Polanski's harrowing Holocaust drama, The Pianist, is an astonishing achievement, and has picked up momentum since its nomination, but again, the competition is just too strong this year. The Hours is the film that probably provides the biggest competition, but again, it's a film which seems to have its supporters and detractors, and this could hurt it against the clear frontrunner. And "that's Chicago" as Richard Gere would say. It has the most nominations this year, 13, and that always benefits a Best Picture's chances. But probably the biggest things in the film's favor are that there is so much love and support for this film, it is sailing through the Oscar Season without any backlash which we usually see for early frontrunners. The Academy Awards have not honored a musical with the Best Picture Oscar since 1968(!), and there's the sense that during a year when the Academy is celebrating 75 years of celebrating the motion picture business, a perfect film to honor would be a pure wonderful celebration of show business. No one thought that the musical as a genre would ever come back, but this one is proving that the old fashioned musical, if done well, can indeed succeed. It's got everything ... wonderful actors all giving their all, plus a level of excitement and joy that just sucks you in. And it will have one more thing on March 23 ... an Oscar for Best Picture.Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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