That pale, golden glow you see edging over the horizon isn't the sunrise but Oscar Night. In less than three days, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will put an end to our misery by announcing their awards for 2006. Will there be surprises? Part of me hopes so (say The Queen for Best Picture) but another part of me hopes not (I'd love to see Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson both take home awards for their amazing work in Dreamgirls), but we don't have a Titanic behind which to lash our Oscar predictions, so we must go out on a limb in a number of cases and realize that being wrong isn't such a bad thing this year.
The third and final installment of my predictions article starts now. We'll take a look at the big six categories: acting, directing and picture. These are probably the least suspenseful categories of all of them, so they are likely to be the most surprising should they go a different direction…all except Best Picture, which is a crap shoot.
Supporting Actress
Patterns have a way of developing over time. This year, two possible patterns are converging and the results could be intriguing. The front-runner this year is ingénue Jennifer Hudson whose film debut in Dreamgirls has won the lion's share of awards. The problem is that history isn't on her side.
In the last 70 supporting contests twenty-one times have a Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress been a film's only acting nominations. In those occurrences, only twice have both actors won (and both of those were for Best Picture nominees). This is more of a penalty for Eddie Murphy in Supporting than it is for Hudson as the only two times one of the two have won it's been the Supporting Actress (Mary Steenburgen in Melvin and Howard and Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind).
Another set of precedents working in this race is the double Supporting Actress nods. As Babel's only acting nominations, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi join eight other pairs that share the same distinction. With such a small selection, it's hard to form a theory but when only two of those past competitions saw one of the two actresses win (Helen Hayes for Airport and Tatum O'Neal for Paper Moon). Only one of those victories also came from a Best Picture nomination (from three of the eight that also carry such a mention).
The record is better in the Supporting Actor category, but little does that matter in this contest. There are 19 other situations where two actresses were mentioned in the Supporting Actress category. Of those times, six have seen one of the two winning. These are still not facts that are supporting a win by Barraza, Kikuchi or Hudson.
Cate Blanchett could also be a spoiler with a win for Notes on a Scandal. Though successful as a leading lady, her first victory was in Supporting Actress. History shows that the frequency of an actress winning two supporting trophies is not high and the time between a first and second trophy in that category is lengthy. Two actresses, Dianne Wiest (1986, 1994) and Shelley Winters (1959, 1965) are the only two occurrences. Since Blanchett won only two years ago, her chances are also not good.
That leaves a significant chance for little Abigail Breslin. Her nomination for Little Miss Sunshine is one of only thirteen such nominations for a juvenile performer. One of those thirteen is a lead nomination but Keisha Castle-Hughes didn't win. However, the only juvenile performances to win competitive Oscars occur in the Supporting Actress category (Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon and Anna Paquin in The Piano). It's a better record than many of the others, but still no guarantee.
However, we may have to look to precursors for more clarification. Hudson has taken 11 prizes, including the coveted Screen Actors Guild award. Her nearest competitor is Blacnhett with five followed by Kikuchi with three. Breslin and Barraza have only one award in their name this awards season. SAG's record in this category is historically low, but in the last five years it has improved dramatically with Helen Mirren losing to Jennifer Connelly five years ago.
This award is Hudson's to lose and any other outcome would be disappointing to me but wouldn't be too shocking considering the wide-open race this year.
Supporting Actor
There are so many precedents in play in the Supporting Actor category, I don't know where to begin and I certainly won't cover all of them.
Eddie Murphy became the third Saturday Night Live alum to get a nomination for an Oscar. The previous two, however (Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray) didn't win. His chief rivals are former child actor Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children, Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine and Mark Wahlberg for The Deaprted. Djimon Hounsou could be a spoiler for his work on Blood Diamond but that outcome seems the most unlikely.
Haley has an interesting statistic that makes his win seem unlikely. Of the 19 times where Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor were a film's only acting nominations, only three times has the Supporting Actor nominee taken the prize (Charles Coburn for The More the Merrier, Jack Albertson for The Subject Was Roses and Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman). Only one film has matched Little Children's nominations feat of Actress, Supporting Actor and Writing. In America lost all three awards back in 2003 making the film's chances fleeting. Some will like the cinematic rebirth tale following Haley around, but that didn't work for Gloria Stuart.
Arkin could benefit from being the only long-standing Hollywood actor in the bunch. The problem is, like the Supporting Actress categories, veteran actors winning has significantly subsided. Alan Alda, Paul Newman and Albert Finney all took hits at the Oscars despite their status in Hollywood. It's conceivable that if Little Miss Sunshine is to win Best Picture, a corresponding win here or Supporting Actress would be a possibility.
That leaves Wahlberg whose nomination seems more like Ethan Hawke's than anything. He's the lone acting nominee from The Departed which seems to indicate that Hollywood isn't as in love with the film as they could have been. That said, Wahlberg's win would be the first for a singer-turned-actor since Cher. That won't help his chances, especially since he started out in the rap/hip-hop world.
With history once again on no one's side, we must look at the precursors for a hopeful understanding of what may be to come. Haley has the most prizes with eight but he didn't nab either the Golden Globe or the SAG award. His are mostly critics prizes which aren't terribly prognosticative. SAG and the GGs are, however. In their paired history, SAG and the Globes have only agreed on two Supporting Actor winners (Martin Landau in Ed Wood and Tim Robbins in Mystic River). Though that's only a 12 year period shared between them, it's pretty telling that the only times they have agreed, the winner received the Oscar. This is the only good news for Murphy as this may be a nail biter all the way to the end.
Actress
There's almost no reason to discuss this race. For the first time in decades, the bookies have actually started paying out some bets on Helen Mirren to win for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Matter of fact, there's no one I know that doesn't believe she'll win this. She has received a staggering 27 precursor awards and will become the first queen to win the lead trophy since Katharine Hepburn won for The Lion in Winter 38 years ago. She would also be only the second royal monarch to claim the prize for Best Actress.
Of course, we all know what happened when Hepburn won, a young ingénue named Barbra Streisand tied for the prize for her work in Funny Girl. It was the only such occurrence in this category and one of a limited few in Oscar's 79-year history. Who could possibly tie Dame Mirren or even beat her? Likely no one, but let's look at each of her competitors and see.
Judi Dench seems the most likely. She's the only actress to approach Helen in age or experience. Her performance in Notes on a Scandal may be too much for many voters, potentially shutting her out of consideration.
Penelope Cruz, like Salma Hayek before her, will be an also-ran. Foreign language performances just don't win this category. Two out of the 78 spoke a different language (Sophia Loren spoke Italian in Two Women and Marlee Matlin used American Sign Language in Children of a Lesser God). If anyone, Cruz would be like Loren, a beautiful and talented actress whose performances in foreign lingo pics have been lauded for years. However, against such other young competition, it will be hard for her to siphon off enough votes to pull an upset.
Meryl Streep has two Oscars and it seems highly unlikely that the Academy will give her a third trophy for something so slight as a comedy. She has many years of work left in her, so I doubt they'll be ready to heft more prizes on her for a very long time.
That leaves Kate Winslet would could pull a surprise. Though only three actresses in the Actress/Supporting Actor conundrum in the Supporting Actor category above have ever won, Winslet most certainly could. She has more Oscar nominations under her belt by the age of 31 than any other actor. Five mentions but no wins means either she's a serious threat to Mirren or she's destined to win sometime in the near future.
My bet is the near future because there's nothing standing in the way of a Royal victory by Mirren.
Actor
Becoming the first "royal" pair to win the Top prize, Forest Whitaker should easily win for his portrayal of The Last King of Scotland. While not truly a king, Whitaker plays Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who claims a kinship to the Scots and takes on the titular appellation. He has won nearly as many prizes as Mirren has (23) but his handicap is Academy history.
No actor has ever made it to his or her eighth nomination and not won. Al Pacino and Geraldine Page both picked up their competitive Oscars on their eighth try. This gives Peter O'Toole a leg up in a category that, in the past, has landed legendary actors Oscars. Paul Newman and Henry Fonda are the most notable examples. However, sentiment doesn't rear its head often with the Academy with legendary performers like Lauren Bacall going into the night a heavy favorite and walking away empty handed.
There is one actor in this category who could benefit from a split vote. Will Smith's performance in Pursuit of Happyness pushes all the right emotional buttons and could turn the rapper-turned-actor into the first such person since Cher to win. If both he and Wahlberg win precedents will shatter all over the place. Smith's been giving out Oscar caliber performances for years now and this might be the chance for him to get recognized.
The most delightful spoiler would be if Ryan Gosling were to win for his amazing performance in Half-Nelson. Not only would it be the most shocking upset in Oscar history (pushing aside the likes of Adrien Brody, Marisa Tomei and Juliette Binoche), it would also be one of the most praised. Sure everyone has a favorite and plenty would be happy enough to see Whitaker win, but many of those same people would crow over a Gosling victory as a step in the right direction for the Academy.
The last contender for the award is previously Oscar nominated thesp Leonardo DiCaprio. After his first nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, he made a series of poor screen choices that made Hollywood question if he was little more than a teenage pin-up looking to be taken seriously. Then he began turning in one wonderful performance after another. He got his second mention for The Aviator after being snubbed for Gangs of New York. His third outing with Scorsese yielded another shot at gold, but placement confusion resulted in his third nomination going to his work in Blood Diamond and not The Departed. That one error pushed him to the bottom of the list where many believe he can't triumph. And against other Hollywood heavy-hitters like O'Toole and Smith, it's hard to conceive of him winning.
Stranger things have happened, but this is Whitaker's to lose.
Director
After more than 30 years as an also-ran, Martin Scorsese finally looks poised to pick up the trophy for Best Director. While his best work may be behind him, Hollywood won't give up the opportunity to finally recognize one of Hollywood's last living directing legends.
But we've thought that twice before. Both The Aviator and Gangs of New York generated huge buzz and the talk was everywhere about him finally winning. Those opportunities came and passed and Scorsese remains Oscar-less. Now, he has a Directors Guild of America award to back him up (something he has never had before, either) and it's a very rare occurrence that the DGA winner doesn't also win Best Director. That's where recent history comes into play. While it was generally only once a decade that the winners didn't match up, it has happened twice this decade and we're only five years in. Ang Lee lost to Steven Soderbergh in 2000 and Rob Marshall lost to Roman Polanski in 2002 (the last time Scorsese was nominated). It could happen again, but who could benefit from such a split?
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is a relatively new director and though is film is a front-runner for Best Picture, he is not. Gonzalez Inarritu has many more years to prove himself and will not likely claim victory this night.
Stephen Frears' film The Queen isn't as much of a front-runner as it might have been a month or two ago. Frears will have to live with the designator of also-ran.
Clint Eastwood already has two directing trophies and while it wouldn't be unprecedented for him to win (John Ford won the same number of prizes in approximately the same period of time), it would require a huge last-minute groundswell of support for Letters from Iwo Jima to result in its victory here. If it does win, however, Best Picture will almost assuredly go to Iwo Jima.
That leaves Paul Greengrass. His United 93 was certainly well respected and though it wasn't nominated for Best Picture, he is still a contender. He has decades of precedent against him as directors of pictures not selected for Best Picture rarely win, but with the emotional impact of his film, he could be the benefactor.
Still, conventional wisdom points to Scorsese as the victor and far be it from me defy conventional wisdom on this one.
Picture
There hasn't been a Best Picture line-up this difficult to predict in a very long time. Each film has its pros and cons and any of them could actually win.
Starting with the least likely, Letters from Iwo Jima suffers from two problems. The first is that Eastwood has been honored already for his work and the Academy isn't likely to duplicate that so soon. The other is that it's a foreign language picture. Not in the history of the awards has a film entirely in another language managed to take the Top prize. If anyone could break that record though, it would be Eastwood.
The most likely benefactor of a split in votes between the remaining three films is The Queen. The film played incredibly well with critics, but it was snubbed in several key categories, include Supporting Actor and its support has waned significantly in the past couple of months. Still, if there were a film in this list I would like to see win above the others, The Queen would receive that designation.
Decades of history say that Little Miss Sunshine won't win Best Picture, but a lot of people believe that it's touching and heart-felt portrayal of middle class familial angst may be just want the doctor ordered to play down years of serious fare in this category. But there are two things crippling it. It has no Director or Film Editing nomination. These categories have significant impact on Best Picture victors. The former has only happened three times, two in the early days and one with Driving Miss Daisy back in '89. The latter is a little more common in that ten times in the last 71 years has an editing omission claimed Top -spot victory. This latter fact isn't helped by a 26-year hiatus since the last occurrence. Still, Little Miss Sunshine picked up the SAG award for Best Ensemble (the only major precursor Crash claimed before its upset victory last year) and the less reliable PGA award for Best Production.
Running second to my prediction for Best Picture is Scorsese's Boston mafia drama The Departed. It is the most successful among the nominees at the box office, but success is fleeting and its lack of support in the acting categories may be a hindrance. Another factor running counter to a Departed victory is that it didn't pick up a needed GG or PGA victory. Either of those prizes might have moved it to the forefront, but its future is questionable. The film also has no message. Unlike most past winners, Departed has no overarching theme of importance. It's merely a good suspense yarn. That could propel it to victory, but it may doom it as well.
My vote for the winner of this year's Best Picture trophy is Babel. Like Crash last year, Babel puts forth a pro-peace and understanding philosophy that appeals to voters. It's a message movie that many will feel represents their ideals to the world at large. For this reason alone, I think it will triumph. Other things going for it is its nods in both Best Director and Best Film Editing. Sharing that designation only with The Departed, Babel also has the Golden Globe for Best Drama, a prize that Departed couldn't claim.
Many factors will be in play, but these seem to point more towards a Babel victory than anything else.
When the Oscars are over and we're ruminating on the winners, be sure to remind yourself how unpredictable a year it was. Outside of the acting and directing categories, many of the winners were up in the air right until the end. Also rest assured in the fact that at least 50% of the public will disagree with any selection and at least 10% of those will have something to say about it. Best wishes in all of your predictions.
-Wesley Lovell (February 23, 2007)