The winners of the 83rd Academy Awards will be announced Sunday at a ceremony honoring excellence in films released during 2010.
Along with my annual predicting of nominations (see my Jan. 20 column “Predicted Oscar nominations”), I use my Academy Award knowledge and film-watching experience to try and guess the winners in the six major categories.
There are three critical components to correctly determining any year”s Oscar winners: the year”s performances, the trends of the year”s pre-Oscar awards and recent Oscar history.
The most obvious factor is seeing as many of the nominated movies as possible. In full disclosure, I have not seen three of the 15 movies nominated in the six major categories – I missed “Biutiful,” “Blue Valentine,” and “Rabbit Hole.”
Fortunately, knowing the trends in a year”s pre-Oscar awards can override the need to see every film, especially some of the lesser-known ones. For example, if a performance or film has gotten little to no award season buzz (maybe occasional nominations but few, if any, wins), then missing that film isn”t a worst-case scenario.
The Academy Award winners usually match up with winners among the other major year-end awards (Golden Globes, British Academy Film Awards, Screen Actors Guild) and it”s those performances and those films you have to see.
Lastly, analyzing recent Oscar trends can really help you determine a year”s winners. Here are a few stats from the past 10 years to keep in mind:
* Seven times the film that won Best Picture also won Best Director.
* Best Director winners had been previous Best Director nominees as many times as they had been either previous winners or first-time nominees.
* Of the 40 acting winners, 23 were first-time nominees, 13 had been previously nominated and four were previous winners (at the time of that year”s Oscars).
Those certainly aren”t all the trends you should consider, but they are the most important.
Enough prefacing; let”s get into the winners.
Best Supporting Actress:
The two favorites are Helena Bonham Carter (“The King”s Speech”) and Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”). Both gave riveting performances of real-life women, but Leo”s role required more overt, wide-ranging emotion. Leo has also won the Globe and SAG award; Carter only got the BAFTA.
A dark horse could be first-time nominee Hailee Steinfeld, who”s commanding presence dominated “True Grit.” Still, the race seems to be between second-time nominees Carter and Leo.
Should/will win, Leo.
Best Supporting Actor:
Again, we have a two-person race for acting in “The Fighter” (Christian Bale) and “The King”s Speech” (Geoffrey Rush). Like his co-star Leo, Bale, a first-time nominee, dominated the pre-Oscar races early, but Rush closed the gap with his BAFTA win.
Bale”s high-energy rendering of Dicky Eklund drove “The Fighter,” but Rush”s controlled performance as Lionel Logue, the king”s speech therapist, held his film together.
No other actor seems poised to upset these two guys, so it might come down to whether Academy voters feel that Rush”s performance was outstanding enough to warrant awarding him a second Oscar.
This is the toughest race to call, but Bale”s performance stood out much more than Rush”s (but sometimes the voters reward the calmer, precision role). Also, Bale is the only first-time nominee favored to win an acting Oscar, and there has been only one year in the past 10 in which a first-time nominee did not win an acting Oscar.
Still, I”m going to follow my gut instead of my historical knowledge and predict a bit of an upset.
Should win, Bale. Will win, Rush.
Best Actress:
It”s funny how these contests commonly develop into two-person races, but this category is more lop-sided than the supporting chases. Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) is the favorite, while Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right”) is more the underdog.
The women split the Golden Globe Best Actress awards, but Academy voters tend to lean toward a role in a dramatic film than the one in a comedy.
Another knock against Bening is that she”s been in the underdog twice before and lost (both times to Hilary Swank), and I just don”t think the voters will make up for those two losses this year. Portman”s performance was more physical, more overt and more alluring – three characteristics common among Oscar-winning lead roles.
Should/will win, Portman.
Best Actor:
Colin Firth (“The King”s Speech”) is the only sure thing in these six categories. His performance as England”s King George VI had everything: it was engaging, his character lived with and then learned to overcome a disability, and most of all, you rooted for him to succeed.
As if that wasn”t enough, Firth has won pretty much every major leading actor award this season.
Should/will win, Firth.
Best Director:
All five men helmed thoroughly entertaining movies.
For my money, Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”) directed the most dynamically filmed movie of the year (meaning it would appear he had the hardest job to do). But “Black Swan” doesn”t seem likely to win Best Picture, and based on the past 10 years, that mean”s Aronofsky only has a 30-percent chance of winning.
There is one statistic that trumps all other Oscar-related figures: The winner of the Directors Guild of America Award has won the Best Director Oscar all but six times since 1950 (Rob Marshall, “Chicago” director, was the last DGA winner to lose the Oscar).
No director seemed to outshine DGA-winning Tom Hooper (“The King”s Speech”) enough to make me chose against him.
Should win, Aronofsky. Will win, Hooper.
Best Picture:
I saw all 10 of the nominees, and they all had something to offer. “Inception” entertained me the most; “Black Swan” was enthralling; “127 Hours” and “The Fighter” were extremely engaging; and “The Social Network” gave us a poignant look at the birth of Facebook.
But the favorite appears to “The King”s Speech.” It”s a biopic (which voters love) that should end up performing well throughout Oscar night, and the Best Picture award would be the film”s lasting crown of achievement.
Should/will win, “The King”s Speech”
To see how your predictions (and mine) hold up, tune in to ABC on Sunday at 5 p.m.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
