Uneducated Guesswork (UPDATED)

There was a time when tomorrow morning would have been reason for me to set an alarm, brew an extra pot of coffee and have my neatly hand-written predictions prepared. However, I've become less and less interested in the Academy Awards with each passing year. Actually, that's pretty evident just by doing a quick look back at the space I've devoted to Hollywood's orgy of self-congratulation on this blog. In 2006 (the first year for anything here at BMC), I had to go back into my e-mail to put up my predicted nominees but did manage to get my predicted winners up in time. The following year, it appears I only managed to get the nominee predictions up. And last year, I seemingly forgot about the whole thing entirely.

Now, there's various explanations for this, one of which is quite simply that I'm just not the movie nut I used to be. I saw essentially every movie released in the 1990s and while I think know I can back up my opinion on whatever category from whichever year you'd like to discuss from that decade, there's a great many films in this current decade I just never got around to seeing. I mean, there were plenty of great films that came out of the 90s, but there was also a lot of just absolute crap.

However, I've been finding myself in recent months discussing movies with more and more people. A friend I made this past year has been discussing most of the hyped films with me and which are worth seeing. I caught more of the bigger releases this year before the ceremony than in years past as well. And I'm particularly fond of Will Lietch, formerly a man-crush of mine because of his creation of Deadspin, now using a Tumblr to post movie reviews—and his own Oscar predictions!

Now all of that said, there's still a lot of movies I didn't see this year—and most of those, of course, are probably going to be what will be nominated tomorrow morning. However, as the business usually goes, that means once nominated, the films get a wider release, and schmucks like myself who don't make it down to the hip theaters in Chicago anymore can go enjoy an "important" film with a few other fellow suburbanites whom almost certainly will talk throughout the entire thing.

Anyway, I haven't done too much in-depth research about what has helped or hurt certain film campaign's chances, so I'm sure that tomorrow night when I have more time to read over reactions to the nominations, I'm bound to find plenty of items that will make me say, "See, you should have known that wouldn't get nominated."

Nonetheless, here's me familiarizing myself once again with an old habit and guessing how the "Big Eight" will be announced tomorrow morning while I'm still soundly asleep and hoping I don't get written up during our restaurant's evaluation by the corporate douchebags we've got visiting tomorrow for lunch.

I will add updated thoughts to this tomorrow evening:

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ACTOR
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, Milk
James Franco, Milk
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E
Robert D. Siegel, The Wrestler

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

I'm second-guessing myself already.

UPDATE: Perhaps "Really Uneducated" would have been more appropriate. So, keeping with my apparent pattern of decline on posting these predictions, I once again did four worse than the previous time, ending up at 28 out of 40. I guess that by comparison to most of the other picks I've seen, it's not terribly behind the rest of the pack. But the Adapted Screenplay category was my only five for five, and I was left with these thoughts when looking at the nominees this morning:

• A few months ago, I had told my buddy, B. Doggy, that The Dark Knight probably wouldn't even be nominated for Best Picture. My logic at that time was that the Academy wasn't going to want to give that kind of an honor to a super-hero flick. Apparently, I should have stuck with that thinking. But as I looked at what the top films were considered to be, there was no denying that Christopher Nolan's film had not only been a huge commercial success, but the movie had also won pretty sweeping critical acclaim. Alas, it ended up getting snubbed in both Best Picture and Best Director, which doesn't really surprise me all that much or disappoint me either (I enjoyed it, but still thought it was too long and found myself at numerous times throughout the movie thinking of how many scenes could have been trimmed down to make the film move quicker).
• Dark Knight being bumped by The Reader was first among Dave Karger's possible surprises, but another one of his possibilities that also came to pass was the Academy ignoring Kate Winslet's campaign for a Supporting Actress nod for The Reader and instead making that performance her Best Actress nod. I should have known the Academy would do something like that.
• Richard Jenkins was my wild card pick for the Best Actor, but I thought Brad Pitt would be the guy ending up on the outside looking in. So much for that. I know that most reaction I've heard to Gran Torino has been lukewarm at best, but I thought Clint Eastwood could get nominated by reading the phone book on the toilet. His snub was rather surprising, as is the fact that Gran Torino was shut out completely.
• Happy-Go-Lucky was, in my mind, the most I've heard of a Mike Leigh film since Topsy-Turvy (which was critically acclaimed, yet bored the hell out of me). I thought the respected Leigh and his leading actress were safer bets, but I was triple-screwed as neither of those predicted nominations came to pass and instead the film got a screenplay nod I hadn't seen coming.
• So Best Original Song is down to only three nominees now? And Bruce Springsteen wasn't one of them? Really?
• What the hell is Frozen River about anyway?
• Most everything I've heard today indicates Slumdog Millionaire is still considered the favorite to win Best Picture. This despite Benjamin Button having the most nominations and having the sort of sappy heart the Academy tends to love. I'm not sold on a winner yet, I guess.
• What, now the Academy actually makes sure their five nominees for Director actually line up with the five they've got for Picture? I thought they always went out of their way to have one that didn't match, but if I recall correctly, this is like the second time in three years that they've kept their heads out of their asses. Wow, what progress.
• They were asking on the radio if Heath Ledger would have gotten this nomination had he still been alive. I believe the answer would have to be yes. I mean, I love Robert Downey Jr., but an Oscar nomination for Tropic Thunder? Not as strong a year for the supporting males, I guess.
• With all the token nominations she's had, isn't Meryl Streep due to actually win again one of these years?
• Do you even remember the name of that girl who won Best Actress last year? What else has she been in—I mean, like, ever?
  
• I have a lot of fucking movies to see in the next month if I'm to do an honest version of the old "Derek's Ballot" that I used to do. Then again, it's been years since I was able to catch all the nominated films in order to say who clearly deserved to win, so I'm likely to stick with just following the gossip and guessing who will be making acceptance speeches, deserved or not.