Movie Dearest's Fearless Oscar Predictions - 2008

At first, it seemed that this award season was going to be a little more exciting and unpredictable than usual, what with a masked superhero and a cartoon robot unexpectedly in the mix. But, as you know, that didn't happen. Then a feel good sleeper about abject poverty, child prostitution and drug dealers snuck in under the radar and won every award in sight.

And that's not hyperbole, Slumdog Millionaire really has won every award in sight, some dubiously so (again, costume design ... really?). (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Slumdog, but I have a feeling once it hits DVD, there is going to be a lot of "is that it?" chatter.) Needless to say, Slumdog is poised to take the lion's share of tomorrow night's trophies, including Best Picture, Director (Danny Boyle), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing and Original Score. For the rest of Movie Dearest's Fearless Oscar Predictions, see below.


Actor: This race would be a lot closer if Sean Penn (Milk) hadn't won it just five years ago. But he did, so comeback kid Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) will win.
Actress: Kate Winslet (The Reader) is long overdue.
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) is the surest bet of the evening, and rightly so.
Supporting Actress: This category is always good for a surprise, and I have a hunch that Viola Davis (Doubt) will upset front runner Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona).
Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black's script is Milk's best chance at a win.
Art Direction, Visual Effects and Makeup: With a leading 13 nominations, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button should triumph in these so-called "lesser" categories.
Costume Design: Opulence is the key here, and The Duchess has the prize all but sewn up.
Original Song: Slumdog's "Jai Ho" could dance off with the prize, but I'm sticking with my original prediction for WALL-E's "Down to Earth".
Sound Mixing: Another possibility for a Slumdog sweep, but I expect the bombastic The Dark Knight to be triumphant here, leaving ...
Sound Editing: ... to Animated Feature victor WALL-E.
Foreign Language Film: This one is between Israel's Waltz with Bashir and France's The Class, with the latter, more traditional film winning.
Documentary Feature: Man on Wire seems unbeatable.
Animated Short and Live Action Short: Will turn to Chris' picks on these two — La Maison en Petits Cubes and Spielzeugland (Toyland), respectively.
Documentary Short: The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306 (about the MLK assassination) seems to be the consensus.

Well, there they are ... we'll see how well we do tomorrow night. Don't forget, Movie Dearest will be live blogging all the Oscar winners as they happen. See you then!

UPDATE: Movie Dearest scored about what we usually do, with 17 out of 24 correct predictions. The categories we missed: Actor, Supporting Actress, Foreign Language Film, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Documentary Short.