1. Up to today, we have seen all of the movies mentioned below *except* one. We have not seen "The Wrestler" yet. However, because in our experience, the winner of a category has as much to do with the sentiment and thought process of the Academy members (and perhaps more so) as it does with actual quality of performance, the fact that we haven't seen one movie should not have a huge effect.
2. What gets winning votes is most swayed by the Academy membership and the thought process of Academy members. The Academy is composed mostly of Actors (male and female). The Actor branch is the largest branch of the Academy. Knowing that, makes the SAG Awards an interesting predictor of what will win in the acting categories and even in the Picture category, as SAG also has an "Outstanding Cast" award.
The logic: every member of the Academy votes for the winner of each "Best" award. If the Actors are the largest Academy block, and the majority of them vote for a choice, that choice is likely to win. (Even if the other members like Directors and Costume Designers, etc lean to another choice). AND because most Actor Academy members are also likely SAG members, and they've already voted their SAG awards, why would they change to a new choice for their Academy vote?)
As a reminder, here are the SAG winners for this year:
http://www.sagawards.org/nominations
3. Academy member thought process: The members are acutely aware that the world generally sees them as Elitist, narcissistic and living in their own little Hollywood bubble. Because the Oscars are highly publicized, the Academy seems to want to use it as an opportunity to counter the perception that they are elitist, narcissistic, and bubble-fied. SO, sometimes their votes for Best winners are chosen as much for the Statement the Academy thinks the choice will make, as for the actual performance itself.
4. In addition, sometimes they choose based on how dramatic or meaningful they think the Winner's speech will be when they go up on the stage to accept the award. Think about it: they'll all be sitting in the auditorium--they'll want to have some exciting, dramatic speeches that keeps them awake in their seats.
So, given all that background, here is Lee Anne & David's Oscar Analysis for the 2009 Awards:
Best Supporting Actress: VIOLA DAVIS / Mrs. Miller - "DOUBT"
Analysis: David and Lee Anne discussed this at length. Cruz has a lot of buzz, but notice that the SAG went to Winslet for The Reader over Cruz. Normally, we'd say the Oscar would go to the SAG winner, *BUT*, Winslet's performance is in the Academy's Best Actress category, so she wasn't even a choice here.
In addition, our analysis is that the Academy members will want to vote for an African-American somewhere out of the acting choices because (a) this is the time of Obama and (b) if they *don't* vote for either Viola or Taraji in this category, all of the publicity photos of the winners on Monday morning will have no diversity and the Academy will not want to perpetuate that perception of Hollywood.
They'll rationalize the decision *not* to choose Cruz by thinking she'll do something great soon that they can vote for, and same for Amy Adams. And Tomei has won this category before, so why give her a second one. Our opinion is they'll choose Viola Davis.
Best Supporting Actor: HEATH LEDGER / Joker - "THE DARK KNIGHT"
Analysis:
The SAG members (who are likely also Academy actor members) gave this award to Ledger. The winning moment will be dramatically off the charts (little girl accepting the award, family coming from Australia to be in the audience, etc).
You'd have to ask what would compel them to *not* vote for Ledger and vote for one of the others, and there is no compelling reason. (Hoffman's won an Oscar already, Brolin's on a rise will have something in the future, they won't reward a comic performance by giving it to Downey and they likely nominated that performance because he talks about the Oscars in it! Shannon was a great performance, but it's not enough to topple the sentimental choice.)
Best Actor: SEAN PENN / Harvey Milk - "MILK"
Analysis:
Reasons for Penn winning:
(1) Academy loves bio-pics when the actor seems to truly channel the person *and* when the person is someone that they remember from real life and compare how like the real person the performance is (unlike say playing Caesar. Think "Ray" and "Last King of Scotland" and "The Queen").
(2) Penn won the SAG award for this category.
(3) Penn is well-liked among the Hollywood movie business/Academy. They love to see people they like on stage talking to them as they sit in the audience.
(4) The Academy perceives that California looks prejudiced to gays because of the passage of that Proposition (8?), and by choosing Penn, they'll get someone up on stage making a speech that counters that perception. We think that the Academy members will want to get someone up on that stage from "Milk" to speak about that. They *could* do it by voting for Gus Von Sant for director, or by giving it screenplay or something else, but given the SAG award and Penn's popularity, we think he'll get this, even though he's already won the Best Actor Oscar before.
Reasons why they can feel OK about not voting for the others even though they'd be giving Penn a second Oscar: voting for Langella would be honoring his body of work in the theatre; however, it would also be recognizing Nixon, and not sure they'd want to do that over recognizing Milk. And while Rourke's gotten a lot of press and he won the Golden Globe, the Academy may feel that's enough recognition for him that they don't also have to vote for him. For Jenkins, "it's enough to be nominated", and Benjamin Button has lost its edge for Pitt.
Best Actress: KATE WINSLET / Hanna Schmitz - "THE READER"
Analysis:
This category is interesting this year because the Academy choices are different from the SAG choices. For SAG, Winslet won for this performance *but* in Supp. Actress. Streep won the SAG, however, we doubt the Academy will vote for Streep because (a) she's already won 2 Oscars and (b) everyone knows she's fantastic so while she'll get nominated but they'll spread the love by giving the Oscar to someone other than her because she's already won before.
There's no compelling reason to choose the other 3 (Hathaway, Leo, Jolie) over Winslet.
Plus, after her emotional speeches at the Golden Globes and SAG awards, the Academy members will believe they'll get a great dramatic moment on stage as Winslet accepts her award.
Best Director: DANNY BOYLE / "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"
Analysis: We are not so sure about this category: if the Academy doesn't choose Penn for Milk, they might very well vote for Gus Van Sant for Milk, in order to get that person on stage to speak and counter the whole Prop 8 thing. However, Danny Boyle won the Directors Guild Award and Slumdog was a good directing feat with the interweaving of the childrens' past timeline with the present timeline. So, we're leaning with the DGA choice and that the rest of the Academy will track with that.
Best Picture: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Why? It's both the "feel good" movie in the category *and* choosing it will show the world that the Academy thinks "globally" and isn't so narcissistic that they don't feel or think about what's happening in the rest of the world outside their Hollywood bubble. It won the SAG "cast" award, the DGA, the Producer's Guide Awards already. There's no compelling reason *not* to vote for it.
Those are the big categories!
The other ones tend to be more difficult to predict. I think that the Academy will want to honor "Benjamin Button" with something, so it might pick up the Makeup and maybe Visual Effects (though Iron Man's visual effects blew us away). Wall-E will get Animated Movie, we believe. And perhaps also Sound Editing.
Cinematography usually tracks the Best Picture (Slumdog).
All of the screenplays were very very good this year, except we thought Benjamin Button was way too long given that it was based on a short story. Slumdog will likely pick up the Adapted Screenplay, but maybe Wall-E for Original Screenplay? Or "In Bruges", that truly was a hoot to watch!